Mistakes by Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick prove costly, and Jimmie Johnson rallies to win a 5th consecutive NASCAR title

  Mr. Five-time now, Jimmie Johnson had things his way most of the day, while title rivals Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick faltered in the finale (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   (Updated)

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

Hamlin, who never led a lap, wound up 39 points down.
   Harvick, 59 points down at the start of the day, was a slow starter but strong finisher. He finished third in the 400, behind Edwards and Johnson. But a pit road speeding penalty hurt Harvick late in the day; he won the battle off pit road to grab the lead under yellow, but NASCAR penalized him for speeding entering pit road, and that put him at the rear of the lead pack. Harvick never led a lap.
   Johnson, though he didn't have a flawless race (pit stops were slow), made no bad mistakes.
   "This year we showed what this team is made of. We didn't always have the most speed but we had the most heart," Johnson said.  "You saw something special today."
   This was one of the tightest title chases in several years, and this 400 was expected to be a three-man fight among the three challengers...but it never turned out that way. Johnson outqualified the two, who started deep in the field. Hamlin's early brush with Biffle just 25 laps into the 267-lapper was crucial, and Hamlin, though he somewhat recovered, was never in contention for the win.
   "This is obviously a huge disappointment," rival team owner Joe Gibbs said after his man, Hamlin, lost. "I hope that everyone handles this the right way..."
   Harvick was angry about the penalty that was so costly and that took him and his team off their game plan.
   "I don't think that pit road penalty will ever settle with me," Harvick charged.
   "I don't know how you can be speeding if you on the bumper of the guy right in front of you and he's not speeding.
   "Even if we'd won the race it wouldn't have been good enough. But it still hurts...."
   "This has been one of the hardest fought championships," Johnson's team owner, Rick Hendrick, said.

  Yep, Carl Edwards is back in backflip form, celebrating his second straight NASCAR tour victory (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

    Edwards and Johnson got to share victory lane. And Edwards told Johnson "this means it's going to take us six years to beat that. It's just
unreal what those guys have been able to do.
    "I think that's the question everybody is going to ask themselves when they go home: 'How do we beat those guys?'
    "I believe our slope, our gain is a little steeper than their's right now. The question is 'Can we keep that going?'
     "....ecause on average they've just been better than everyone else."
     But Edwards, whose late-season charge pulled him up to fourth in the final Sprint Cup standings, 229 points behind Johnson, was delightfully pleased with his team's turnaround the second half of this season, even joking with crew chief Bob Osborne 'Hey, Bob, how come you weren't setting up our cars like this before."
     Edwards, if not for an electrical problem at California, might have been in this title chase late too.
    "For our team to finish like this -- and be on the upswing that we are -- this is as good as it gets," Edwards said.
    However Edwards has been in this same situation before, closing out 2008 strong, with a win here, and then stumbling through 2009. In fact until his Phoenix win last weekend, Edwards had rung up an 0-for-70 streak.
    "I feel a lot better right now going into 2011 than I did going into 2009, and that's because I feel we've got a lot of momentum," Edwards said. "We've got a new engine we're working on that just keeps getting better:  This is the best performance down the straightaway that I've had in a long time.
    "We've just got a lot of good things going. I can't tell you how much it means to finish the season like this – It's spectacular for us.
    "Hey, if you had told me 10 races into the season that this is how we were going to wrap this thing up, I would not have believed you. This is beyond the comeback I expected. It's really beyond what I hoped for.
     "This is very good finish to the season." 

   
   

     Denny Hamlin and crew chief Mike Ford (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
   

    Yet for Johnson it was a great finish to the season. And in the car as he finished the last lap Johnson let out a whoop: "Unbelievable! Unbelievable!
    "WOOHOO!
     "I can't believe that we did this."
     Indeed it was not a typical Jimmie Johnson chase, where he'd clinched things before he even got here. He had to race for the win, and he finished a very strong second, less than two seconds behind the dominant Edwards. And Johnson outran his two chase rivals most of the day, in part thanks to his good starting spot and their bad.
    "This year we showed what this team is made of," Johnson said, referring to an up-and-down year where rivals sensed he was vulnerable. "At times we didn't have the most speed, but we proved it here at the end of the chase.
    "I am just besides myself. Four was amazing....now I have to figure out what the hell to say about winning five of these things."
    Johnson kept track of his rivals, and for a while Hamlin was ahead of him. "I could see in the mirror where the guys were, where Kevin was and where Denny was.  When Denny got in front of me two spots, I thought 'Man, it's going to be tough now.'"
   Johnson started the day down 15 points, which is about three or four spots.
     "I expected them to be there, but we had restart or two, and we went forward, and they went backward, and off it went," Johnson said of Hamlin.
    "Chad (Knaus, his crew chief) told me with about 10 to go to be smart and save our tires in case there was a green-white-checkered, and I definitely backed off a little. But I don't think I had anything for Carl."
     Johnson conceded he was worried more than once during the 10-race chase that he might not be able to pull it off. He and his team have been off at times this season, more than usual. And then Knaus made that dramatic mid-race pit crew swap at Texas.....
    "I don't think we're invincible....and I knew coming into this that at some point somebody is going to beat us...and Denny did an awesome job all chase long, and Kevin too.
    "So I knew there was a good chance....
    "But I knew that if I gave 100% and so did my team, we could sleep at night. 
    "And I know we may not sleep tonight but we're going to sleep sometime soon!"

     Jimmie Johnson hoists the fifth trophy (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   Team owner Rick Hendrick called the final miles nerve-wracking: "It was really, really tough the last 20 laps or so, because you really didn't know where anybody was. When Denny pitted (out of sequence)...then Kevin had a problem...
   "Man, it has been a crazy day. This race has been so up and down all day long. 
    "Denny had a problem, then Denny came back. We had a problem (pit stops)....and then Kevin had a problem.
    "It was like 'who is going to screw up the most?'"
    Actually it turned on who screwed up the least, and that was Johnson.
    And now Hendrick has 10 NASCAR championship trophies, and Johnson is looking at matching legends Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt with seven titles.  And Johnson has won these five championships in much shorter time than either Petty or Earnhardt won their first five.
    "It's really hard to win one of these deals, and for Jimmie and that team to do it five times in a row it's just unbelievable," Hendrick said.
     "This has been one of the hardest fought championships I can remember.  We lost one in 2004 by eight points...and I feel for Denny and Kevin, because they ran well all year long. 
     "But somebody has got to win it and I'm glad it was us."
 
                              The results of Sunday's Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway
 

 Carl Edwards throws himself into the crowd again in victory...this time with some security (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)