Rattle Jimmie Johnson’s cage? That’s not happening
Throughout the news conferences for the contenders in NASCAR's Chase For The Sprint Cup at Martinsville, veteran motorsports writer Mike Mulhern focused nearly all of his questions on one subject.
He asked virtually all of the drivers if it wasn’t about time for them to become more aggressive, to, in effect, “rattle Johnson’s cage” in an effort to sidetrack his obvious dominance in the Chase?
After all, Mulhern pointed out, a driver like Dale Earnhardt would challenge the top contender in any way possible. He wouldn’t be afraid to rough him up on the track or even attempt mind games. Given the situation, if it fell to him, he’d do something.
I’ve known ol’ Mike for a lot of years. He knows racing and is darn good at what he does. When it comes to the issues of the day he can certainly stir the stew. When he asked Johnson’s rivals if it was time for them to get rough, he might have done that again.
But he had a point.
Given the situation going into Martinsville where Johnson was No. 1 in the standings with a 90-point pad over teammate Mark Martin - the biggest lead after five races in the Chase’s history – perhaps indeed the time had come for Johnson to be knocked around one way or another.
Mulhern may have stirred the stew, but the drivers weren’t about to taste it.
To a man they said that they were going to race Johnson hard, if the circumstances so dictated, but they were not going to deliberately do anything to “rattle his cage.”
This was the expected answer, of course. I suspect Mulhern would agree.
First, no driver, especially one in the Chase, is going to court NASCAR’s wrath when it comes to rough driving.
Second, at Martinsville, the only drivers with any shot to overtake Johnson were his Hendrick Motorsports teammates – Martin, Jeff Gordon and to a lesser extent, Tony Stewart, whose Stewart-Hass team receives engine and technical support from Hendrick.
I can’t imagine any of them biting the hand that feeds them. Can you?
At Martinsville, Johnson, who had won five of six races there prior to the Tums Fast Relief 500, finished second to Denny Hamlin.
But in so doing he expanded his points lead to 118 over Martin, 150 over Gordon and 192 over Stewart.
OK, given that, does the opportunity to rattle Johnson’s cage still exist with just four races remaining in the Chase?
Perhaps. But then, who’s going to do it?
The answer: no one.
For the conspiracy theorists who suggest that a team, or teams, out of the Chase could be paid a handsome sum to knock Johnson out of his quest for a fourth consecutive title by on-track tactics, well, blabber on; it ain’t happening.
My thinking is that if Johnson escapes the wildly unpredictable race at Talladega unscathed the championship is his to win – or lose.
If he loses it won’t be because his cage was rattled. That’s simply not going to happen.
