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TURNING LEFT: NASCAR at P.I.R
By Charlie O. Mallonee November 18, 2009 |
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Superman Returns Jimmie Johnson had a choice on Sunday, He could play it safe and try to lead one lap and finish fourth. Or, he could throw caution to the wind and run hard on the very tricky track in Phoenix. Johnson chose the second option. He threw caution to the wind and went out and won the race! Johnson finished 38th last week at Texas due to an early accident. It took one-hour and eight-minutes to get the damaged car back on the track. Johnson felt his poor qualifying effort created the situation where he wound up in the multi-car accident. “You know, last week, after Talladega, there was a big relief we made it through, had a good finish. I'd be lying if I didn't feel some things, relief, wonder, Man, maybe this is really going to happen. Went into Texas, had the carpet jerked out from underneath our feet, finished 38th. Maybe there was a good lesson in that. I'm not one to let my mind wander and think about the possibilities. I've always known I've got to go out and race the race, get it done. Maybe it was a good lesson to myself and the team that this thing isn't over. With that in mind, I'm not thinking about a party, what I'm saying, what I'm doing. I'll driving laps. When I go home tonight, I'm going to be driving laps, what I think I need to do in qualifying trim so I can put my best effort in on Friday. Same thing for race practice on Saturday, and go racing Sunday. Texas was such a good lesson. And I hope that the points we lost in Texas isn't what keeps us from winning this championship,” said Johnson in his post-race interview. Johnson qualified third and did not take long to move to the front of the pack. Johnson took the lead on lap 53 and went on to lead a total 238 laps. Johnson’s car seemed to be on rails at times. He was consitent and fast once he took the lead. The victory was Johnson’s seventh P1 posting of the season, and the 47th victory of his career. This was his fourth career win at Phoenix. The win put Johnson’s lead in the Chase for the Sprint Cup up to 108 points over Mark Martin who is in second place. Jeff Gordon is in third place 169 points behind Johnson. The amazing fact is it could be three Hendrick divers finishing first, second and third in the driver’s championship. That would be true domination of the sport, and it looks like that is going to happen barring total disaster striking a Homestead. Jeff Burton posted a P2 finish in one of his best runs of the season. Burton finished mere 1.033-seconds behind Johnson after staving off Mark Martin to finish second. Burton and the RCR team have struggled all season long and have battled their way back to respectability. After the race Burton said, “Obviously we're real happy with the way we ran. We had a long way to come. I did not a very good job on Friday qualifying, got us behind. Made a lot of spots up early. We made a lot of spots up in the pits, too. We had one pit stop early that wasn't good, but the rest of them were really good. I picked up a lot of spots. We had the car to win the race, we just didn't have the track position to win the race. That goes back to what we did on Friday. I got to get better at that. I'm 42, still learning. I will get better at it. We're building on something. We're working hard on our equipment, working hard on our communication, working hard on paying attention to how I drive. Everybody's looking at themselves in the mirror, and the results are showing.” The series now moves on to Homestead - Miami Speedway for the final race of the season. Jimmie Johnson has never raced particularly well at Homestead; however, Johnson only needs to finish 25th in order to win the championship. Homestead is a 1.5-mile track with progressive banking of 18 -20 degrees in the turns. The progressive banking is designed to encourage side by side racing. The new asphalt in the turns is hard on tires and could provide some excitement for the drivers and the fans. At the end of the day, Jimmie Johnson should win his fourth consecutive Sprint Cup Championship while the rest of the field tries to make a statement that will carry them into the 2010 season with some momentum from the final race of the ’09 season. |
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