Is Jimmie Johnson’s dominance good for NASCAR?

As a kid growing up in El Cajon, Calif., Jimmie Johnson always pulled for the winners.

He pulled for the teams and athletes that dominated their sports, whether it was the New York Yankees in baseball or the latest motocross champion dominating motorcycle racing.

“I looked at someone that dominated a sport and wanted to be like that person,” Johnson says. “I certainly picked heroes that were winning.”

Nearly 30 years later, Johnson is living that dream as the most dominant driver in NASCAR.
 
With four straight Sprint Cup championships and 49 victories in less than a decade, Johnson is dominating NASCAR like no one has since Richard Petty.
 
After he won a record fourth straight title last year, Johnson became the first race-car driver in 72 years to be named the Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year, earning more votes than tennis champion Roger Federer, golf’s Tiger Woods, the NBA’s Kobe Bryant and baseball’s Albert Pujols.
 
Johnson is not only the most dominant racer in the world; he is now one of the most dominant athletes in all of professional sports.

But is that dominance good for NASCAR?

Is it good for the same driver to win the most races almost every year, and for that driver to win the championship each season?

Based on Johnson’s lack of popularity and the widespread angst when he wins again and again, the answer among fans is no.
 
His second straight victory last week – and second in three races this season – caused another collective groan throughout the NASCAR world.

Fans commenting on NASCAR-related Web sites contend that TV ratings and attendance are down, in part, for two main reasons: the continuing dominance of Johnson and Hendrick Motorsports, and the lack of success of Dale Earnhardt Jr., the sport’s most popular driver. 
 
In a current poll on SceneDaily.com, 58 percent of voters say that Johnson’s dominance is bad for the sport. Only 10 percent say it’s good for the sport while 32 percent appreciate and respect Johnson’s accomplishments.
 
Fellow drivers and NASCAR insiders, however, are mixed on the issue, with many saying that Johnson’s dominance has had a positive impact on NASCAR.
 
Says legendary driver and team owner Junior Johnson, a member of NASCAR’s inaugural Hall of Fame class: “It’s not good for the fans, but it’s good for the guy dominating.”
 
Kyle Petty, a former driver and now a NASCAR analyst for Speed and TNT, says domination is good for the sport.
 
“Parity sucks,” he says. “It sucks for sports. S-U-C-K-S, sucks.
 
“You shouldn’t have parity in sports. I want to see somebody get pounded in the ground. I want to see somebody get beat. We need somebody for everybody to shoot at.”
 
But ESPN’s Dale Jarrett, another former driver, understands why fans are turned off by Johnson’s overwhelming success.
 
“The thing we have always seen in NASCAR is that there are enough drivers and teams out there that this kind of thing isn’t going to happen,” the 1999 Cup champion says.
 
“On that side of it, you say, no, that is not the best thing for the sport because there are fans out there of all these competitors, and that would be the ultimate, to see somebody different winning it all the time.
 
“That is why NASCAR tries to make the rules as even as they possibly can, to make it to where everybody has that chance.”
 
But Johnson has made a mockery of NASCAR’s “level playing field” in recent years. His 29 victories in the past four seasons are 16 more than the two drivers (Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch) with the second-most wins (13).
 
And he has excelled in NASCAR’s Chase For The Sprint Cup, the 10-race playoff designed to give more drivers and teams a chance to win the championship.
 
Petty, who as a boy watched his father dominate NASCAR’s top series, says fans should enjoy Johnson’s remarkable streak.
 
“From an athletic standpoint, greatness is never boring,” he says. “If you don’t like Jimmie Johnson, if you don’t like Tiger Woods or you don’t like [Olympic gold medalist] Michael Phelps – I don’t care what you think about their personality – when I look at the numbers they have put up, if you don’t stand in awe of some of that and appreciate that, then you are probably pulling for the wrong sport and you probably need to change sports.”
 
Johnson doesn’t believe that his astounding success has had a negative impact on the sport. Like Petty, he believes sports fans appreciate excellence and like to watch a dominant team or athlete.
 
“I think kids watching the races watch somebody that’s winning, dominating and say, ‘I want to grow up and be like that,’” he says. “I don’t think that many kids on local short tracks or local go-kart tracks watch the race and see who finishes 43rd and say, ‘I want to be that guy.’ That just doesn’t happen.”
 
Johnson believes that dominant athletes like Woods – before his recent fall from grace – and Federer are good for their respective sports. And he believes his success will ultimately be good for NASCAR.
 
“I think that a lot of it is the perception of the fan base and, in our culture, we don’t like to see dominance,” he says. “We like to see the underdog come through and prevail.
 
“[But] I think the overwhelming majority, when they reflect back, and especially as a kid … when you’re a kid and you pick a hero, you’re going to pick a person that’s dominating. With that in mind, it cannot be bad for the sport.
 
“I know it’s frustrating for people that aren’t a 48 fan. That’s athletics, that’s sports, it happens, but it’s not bad for the sport.”

NASCAR has always had dominant drivers, from Richard Petty in the 1960s and ’70s to Darrell Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt in the ’80s and ’90s to Jeff Gordon in the late-’90s.
 
“There was always somebody at the top of the heap that everybody was shooting at,” Kyle Petty says. “I don’t think it’s bad to have somebody to shoot at … because it gives you something to aspire to be as a competitor and it gives the fans something to pull for, or 100 percent against. That’s not bad.”
 
 Some argue that, despite his four straight championships, Johnson hasn’t really dominated in the true sense of the word.
 
They argue that as long as other drivers are winning races, it’s OK for Johnson to win the championship every year.
 
“It depends on how they dominate,” driver Jeff Burton says. “If Jimmie Johnson wins four championships and it comes down to the last race of the year, the points battle is close, he wins four races during the year, other people win two, three, four, then that's OK.
 
“But if you have a team that wins the most races every year, leads the most laps every year, the points race is boring every year, that kind of thing, I don't think, is ultimately good for the sport.”
 
Former championship crew chief Ray Evernham, who led Gordon to 40 wins and three championships from 1995-98, says the sport has always had a good mix of winners, even when one driver was on top.
 
Richard Petty won 200 races and seven championships, but he was constantly challenged by David Pearson (105 wins), Cale Yarborough (84) and Bobby Allison (83). Waltrip had to contend with Allison and Earnhardt; Earnhardt had to contend with Bill Elliott, Rusty Wallace and others.

Though Gordon won 47 races in five years, Mark Martin, Dale Jarrett, Jeff Burton and others also had seasons in which they won multiple races during that span.
 
Johnson has 29 wins in the past four years, but Gordon, Martin, Stewart, Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards have all had seasons with five or more wins.
 
“The sport has always been like that,” Evernham says. “It was Petty, then it was Earnhardt, and then it was Gordon and then Johnson. [But] they are not totally dominating.
 
“Everybody says, ‘OK, well, Gordon dominated.’ Gordon won the championships, but there were a bunch of guys winning races at the same time, too. I think the sport was built on that.”
 
Traditionalists say that Johnson’s fourth straight title last year was actually good for the sport because it brought a lot of notoriety and attention to NASCAR.

“Every time he goes out there and makes history in the sport, that is something else we have to lean on and talk about,” Jarrett says.
 
Johnson’s historic achievement sparked debate about the greatest drivers in the sport and where Johnson ranks among Petty, Earnhardt, Gordon and the rest.
 
“I think that’s damn good for the sport,” the modest Johnson says. “There are so many positive things that spin off of that and a lot of respect that is paid to the people who founded the sport and brought the sport along.
 
“In the world of who punched-who-reality-TV shows, I think it’s pretty damn good to have a good storyline and something positive and something historical going on instead of all the other stuff.”
 
The question, though, is how long can NASCAR revel in Johnson’s historic achievements and withstand his dominance when fans are appear to be growing tired of it?
 
With Johnson off to another strong start this season and with a fifth straight title a distinct possibility, there appears to be no end in sight.
 
Evernham, who left Gordon’s Hendrick Motorsports team in the midst of their dominant stretch in 1999, says Johnson’s reign will eventually end. 
 
“If he wins five, six [championships] … if he wins seven or eight, we’ll start to probably lose some folks, but I just don’t believe it will happen. It never does,” Evernham says.
 
“The human element will start to come into the 48 pretty soon, whether that’s burnout, age, whether it’s ego. It happens to every great team, and it will start to happen. I don’t think they will win enough to really start turning people off the sport.”
 
Until then, disgruntled fans will just have to deal with it.
 
Says Jarrett: “All I can say to the fans that don’t like it, they need to write to their driver and their team to get on it and do something different.”