Championship battle may not be tight, but Chase still has some intrigue
Hendrick Motorsports' Jimmie Johnson (left) leads teammates Mark Martin (center) and Jeff Gordon by 108 and 169 points, respectively, in the NASCAR Sprint Cup points standings. // SceneDaily Illustration, NASCAR Scene (from left, David Griffin, Jim Fluharty, Gary Shook)
Not a single position in NASCAR's Chase For The Sprint Cup changed after Sunday’s Checker O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 race at Phoenix International Raceway, but the standings could still see a shakeup in the final race of the season, next Sunday’s Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Hendrick Motorsports’ Jimmie Johnson needs only to finish 25th or better to lock up his fourth consecutive championship, and there’s only one other driver who could win the title: teammate Mark Martin.
Jeff Gordon will be eliminated when Johnson starts at Homestead. But Martin and Gordon already sound like they’ve been eliminated by their teammate.
"Those guys are amazing,” Gordon said of Johnson and his No. 48 team. “[Team owner] Rick Hendrick and his organization is the best out there. They have been proving it year in and year out. … So it inspires us over the offseason to try to get better, and we'll look at doing that. And right now we've got one race to go, and we'll certainly look forward to giving those guys all the props and respect that they certainly deserve because they've earned it."
Gordon finished ninth at Phoenix to fall 169 points behind Johnson and 61 behind Martin. But for a four-time champion like Gordon, finishing third in the standings might as well be 30th.
"Yeah, there are a lot of different reasons why we need to run good out there,” Gordon said. “It's not just because we're trying to win the championship; we're also trying to stay within the battle that we have for second. We lost points to the No. 2 [of Kurt Busch], and we lost points to the No. 5 [of Martin], and that's what makes it a little bit more frustrating."
Everyone lost points to Johnson at Phoenix, a week after the Chase drivers gained on him at Texas. Johnson held a 73-point lead over Martin heading into Phoenix, but after winning and leading the most laps, the driver seeking an unprecedented fourth straight title has a 108-point edge.
Martin can still win his elusive first Cup championship, but he’ll need a lot of help. And it’s clear Martin doesn’t give himself much of a chance to make up that much ground.
"I'm pretty proud of what we've done this season,” Martin said. “That's really all I've got to say about it. I'm proud of what we've accomplished."
Johnson and his team are clearly proud of what they’ve accomplished, too, but the driver won’t let himself celebrate yet. He said the Texas race, where he crashed early before finishing 38th, was a good lesson in counting chickens, so to speak.
“After Talladega, there was a big relief we made it through, had a good finish,” Johnson said of the restrictor-plate race where he finished sixth. “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.”
Johnson said he has been good in the past about not looking ahead, and Texas reminded him not to do it again.
“I'm not one to let my mind wander and think about the possibilities,” Johnson said. “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 be driving laps. When I go home [from Phoenix], 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.”
Behind the top three comes Penske Racing’s Busch, who is 42 points behind Gordon in fourth. Busch has a 74-point edge on Stewart-Haas Racing’s Tony Stewart, who struggled and crashed at Phoenix.
But Stewart has a tenuous hold on fifth, as Earnhardt Ganassi Racing driver Juan Pablo Montoya heads to his hometown track only four points behind Stewart. And Roush Fenway Racing’s Greg Biffle is only 32 points behind Montoya.
Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin is eighth, 31 behind Biffle as positions fifth through eighth are separated by 67 points.
Stewart-Haas Racing’s Ryan Newman is ninth, 59 behind Hamlin and 65 ahead of Richard Petty Motorsports’ Kasey Kahne.
Kahne is 44 ahead of Roush Fenway’s Carl Edwards, with 12th-place Brian Vickers of Red Bull Racing buried in 12th, 146 points out of 11th place.
