Johnson might've really just begun

Sunday, Nov. 22, 2009

HOMESTEAD, Fla. – So this is what history looks like.

Dark hair. Brown eyes. Lightning in a driver’s suit.

It looks a lot like the future.

If Sunday’s Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway began and ended with a sense of inevitability about Jimmie Johnson’s record-setting fourth straight Sprint Cup championship, it may not look and feel much different when the 2010 Daytona 500 rolls around in less than three months.

Not only is Johnson having the time of his life, he’s in the prime of his racing life, too.

“He’s not done,” driver Jeff Burton said Sunday evening as the fireworks celebrating Johnson’s achievement echoed behind him.

Not even close.

Johnson may not yet be loved the way Dale Earnhardt was and he may not have the hat, the shades and the wins that Richard Petty does. But he has his own unmatched place in the sport’s 62-year history.

Like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Roger Federer at their peaks, Jimmie Johnson is that good.

He has won 18 of the 60 Chase races that have been run, failing to finish only once. He’s a better bet than four of a kind, which he now has.

And the more he wins, the more he separates himself, the more Johnson will be admired, respected, and eventually loved. You could feel it in the sustained ovation that rained on him Sunday evening when Johnson finally climbed out of his No. 48 car.

Johnson finished fifth in a 400-mile race that probably felt twice that long, understanding what waited at the end if he could avoid the big mistake. It may have looked easy but it wasn’t.

The 34-year old driver did his best to lower his stress level over the weekend. He had dinner with his wife, Chandra, Saturday night at a South Beach restaurant they like, but he showed up in the team’s hauler earlier than usual Sunday morning, looking to hang out until the race started.

Maybe it was coincidence, but about two hours before the green flag dropped, Alice Cooper’s "No More Mr. Nice Guy" was blaring out of speakers in the garage area near the Lowe’s team hauler.

There were moments during the race when Johnson’s showed his Alice Cooper side, barking into his radio about how Clint Bowyer and Juan Pablo Montoya were driving around him.

He didn’t always use Sunday school language, proving he’s not as squeaky-clean as he sometimes seems.

It also showed the brilliance of crew chief Chad Knaus, who talked his driver down, a bit of role reversal for the two of them.

Johnson didn’t need to be reminded what was at stake Sunday. The Sprint Cup trophy was on display – guarded by red ropes – beside his pit stall before the race.

By the time the race rolled around, Johnson’s pit area looked like South Beach on Saturday night. It was crowded with friends, family and others in expensive-looking jeans and oversized sunglasses.

Even Nick Lachey, who’s famous for something, was hanging out in the Johnson pit.

The closest Johnson came to showing his confidence was on a pre-race lap around the track during driver introductions when he waved four fingers to the crowd as he rode in the back of a pick-up truck. It was his version of trash talk.

Though Johnson started out front, nothing came easily on Sunday. He fell as low as 26th at one point and spent much of his afternoon driving in traffic, picking his way back toward the front.

Twice, Montoya moved up the traffic in front Johnson, costing him track position and raising his blood pressure.

By the end, the only thing missing was team owner Rick Hendrick, who flew home early to be with his 29-year old niece, Alesha Gainey, who was facing a liver transplant on Sunday.

Pushed to assess what he’s done in stock car racing in only eight years, Johnson confessed he’s exceeded his imagination.

“I think it’s up there (all-time),” Johnson said. “The fact that nobody’s done this, it puts me near the top.

“The cool thing is we’re not done yet.”

To answer any other way would have sounded disingenuous.

That wouldn’t be Jimmie Johnson.

He’s the real thing.

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