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The celebration party for Jimmie Johnson continues this week in New York City. (Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR) ยป More Photos
It’s one thing to witness history, it’s another thing entirely to fully understand that you’re witnessing history when it happens.
On Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Jimmie Johnson made history, as did his crew chief Chad Knaus and the rest of the crew of the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet Impala SS.
By winning his third consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup championship, Johnson matched Cale Yarborough as the only driver to win three in a row and Yarborough, Lee Petty, David Pearson and Darrell Waltrip as the only three-time champions in series history. Knaus is the only crew chief to win three in a row.
The team they beat was awfully stout, too. Carl Edwards, Bob Osborne and the No. 99 Roush Fenway Racing team won nine races this season and in the Chase for the Sprint Cup scored three victories and eight finishes of fourth or better.
In the end, all that separated Johnson and Edwards is that Johnson’s two worst finishes — 15th at both Texas and Homestead — were better than the 29th at Talladega and the 33rd at Charlotte that were the worst two for Edwards.
It’s human nature to romanticize the past and think that those who came generations ago were better than the athletes of today. Ask a longtime NASCAR fan about Pearson or Yarborough and they’ll
Well, guess what, folks? Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus are as pureblooded racers as you will ever see, and for that matter, so are Edwards and Osborne. These are guys who live to race, who live to win, and who would stay up until midnight in the garage if they were racing lawnmowers.
There are plenty of poseurs in the NASCAR Sprint Cup garage today, people who are there for the money or the fame or the women or to sell cereal boxes or diecast cars. Not the 48 and the 99 teams. They are there to compete at the highest level every time they roll off the trailer. These are guys who 20, 30, 40 years from now, people will look back at and say, “Those guys were real racers.”
Forget that Johnson and Edwards are clean cut, well spoken and sponsor-friendly. At the core, they are racers, as fierce and competitive as anyone you’ll find.
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