Is it time for NASCAR to call 9-1-1 on Jimmie Johnson now...or just promote him to Formula One?

   Those late-race restarts were a bear....and Jimmie Johnson (48) had to play it just right on teammate Jeff Gordon (24) (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
   

    By Mike Mulhern
    mikemulhern.net

    FONTANA, Calif.
    Maybe this is why NASCAR needs Danica: The Jimmie Johnson Stock Car Racing League held another meet here Sunday, and Jimmie Johnson – surprise, surprise – was the big winner.
    And that fourth straight Sprint Cup title is looking better and better for him and crew chief Chad Knaus.
    Maybe Formula One next season, and give us all a break…..
    It was a surprisingly easy Sunday for Johnson. Well, maybe not surprising, since it was his third straight late-season win at this two-mile flat track. But it was rather easy, all in all.
   "There were points where Juan Pablo Montoya was better than us….a couple cars, like Denny Hamlin, for a handful of laps showed some really, really good pace….But it seemed like on the long haul for the majority of the race, we had what we needed," Johnson said.
    Yeah, man. And then some. And some more. 
   Even teammate Jeff Gordon, who finished a distant second, conceded he had nothing for Johnson – even though both cars are built by the same people in the same shop and Gordon himself has access to all the notes.
    Gordon did make a few runs at Johnson, but Johnson led 126 of the 250 laps, Gordon but six – and those were the first six laps he's led in this chase.
    Finally those two-abreast restarts paid off in some real action…..too much action for some late in the day.
    With six laps to go, on a restart after another crash, the race was red-flagged for 20 minutes to clean up debris from the last crash of the long, long afternoon. That set up a double-file restart, with Johnson versus Gordon.
   And Johnson quickly blew away his teammate.
   "The tough part at the end of the race was the restarts," Johnson said. "It's so tough, with the straightaway this long.
   "It's tough to control your destiny on a restart, because the guys behind you really control who is going to lead going into turn one.  Sometimes you get it right, sometimes you don't. 
    "If the guy behind you gets a poor start, you're not going anywhere. 
    "It's almost like being at Daytona or Talladega with the drafts.  
     "That last restart worked out well for me.  I had a great start on Jeff and was just able to clear him off turn two. That certainly made the difference for us."
    Montoya has been on such a tear it's surprising he's still behind the points. "When it was cool, we were really good…we had the fastest car, and I could just drifted through the corners," Montoya said. "As it got hotter, I got looser, and couldn't get on the gas.
    "We tried to fix that, and the more we fixed it, the worst it got in the corner.
    "I think I had a car good enough to beat Jeff.  But he pinned me down the last lap and got me really loose.
    "But, hey, we finished third. That is good for the chase. So we'll just move on.
    "If you'd ask me – or anybody – 'Did you think we were going to be this competitive when the chase started?'
     "No.
    "We just wanted to make the chase.  And we played our strategy to make the chase.  
     "Now if I could run this good every week next year, then you can win races, take risks, and it doesn't matter.
     "But you know if you DNF one race…."
       Crew chief Chad Knaus said Johnson's win was all patience and cool: "Jimmie was patient when he needed to be patient.  He wasn't overly aggressive in the draft.  Didn't hit the wall like you saw a bunch of guys getting into the fence.  
    "Jimmie was methodical about the way he drove all day and kept our car good to the end."
   After the race NASCAR announced it would take the cars of Johnson and Mark Martin, and  back to Concord, N.C., for more detailed inspection, and the engines of Johnson, Gordon and Newman.
      "It was fun-fun on those restarts," Gordon said with a grimace. "Even when I would get the lead on Jimmie, I knew how strong he was.
    "I tried to run the bottom in three and four. But on one of those last restarts, he just drove right by me on the outside.
    "Still, we were about an eighth-place car when this started and got ourselves up to second.
     "We are making slow gains in the points. We got to make more gains."
    Johnson was so strong it was hard to take his warnings seriously: "There are still six more to go. So it's great, and makes life right right now, but there are still six more to go."
   Still, Johnson and Knaus are incredibly strong in the chase every season. "It really boils down to the fact that the tracks in the chase are my strongest tracks," Johnson said. "Martinsville, Lowe's, this track -- they are tracks that we win at.  
     "So far I am very proud of how we've been able to keep our composure with the pressure that's come our way.  Today we did a good job of it. But there are still six more times to stub our toes."
   The man who should be a bit miffed at the point system is Montoya, who finished third – his fourth consecutive top-five finish in the chase. Despite that streak, better than anyone's , Montoya is still only third in the standings. But then, he reminded, he started the chase 40 points down.
    Tony Stewart, who dominated the regular but who has struggled since August (though he did win Kansas last weekend), was relieved to get out here okay. He finished fifth but it wasn't pretty. Still he did come from a lap down: "It was making chicken salad out of chicken-you-know-what. We were pretty fortunate to get a couple of breaks there when we needed them."
   Worried about the chase yet? He's 84 down.
   "We have a lot of racing left," Stewart said. "We weren't quite as good as we wanted to be today, but we just keep digging.
    "We just lost so much track position, and we had to fight to get it back. Then a lot of guys who had solid days toward the end of the race got their cars hurt."
    While Rick Hendrick men took four of the top-five spots, Dale Earnhardt Jr. wasn't among them. He did get up to 10th once, but he got involved in a late crash and wound up 25th. "We are doing whatever we can to stay positive," Earnhardt said.
    "We had a top-10 car…and it's unfortunate a lot of good cars got tore up there at the end."
   
   

   No photo-finish here. Better find the wide-angle, Rusty. (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)