Jimmie Johnson: NASCAR’s Greatest Racing Driver, America’s Best?

In the fourth chapter of this ‘Driver Spotlight’ series were I look at some of the best racing drivers who are still racing today, I look at an American driver who has utterly dominated a national series which is very difficult to master.

NASCAR isn’t recognised as a motorsport which everyone is impressed by. The majority of motorsport fans (especially in Europe) won’t watch NASCAR and will think that it’s a bit of a joke. All they do is “drive round and round in circles”  for a few hours and it doesn’t help that they have changed their points system to a point of complexity. But a man which a lot of people will have heard of, has won 7 championships, including 5 in a row between 2006 and 2010. Nobody in NASCAR’s 69 year history has ever done this.

Jimmie Johnson has dictated NASCAR over the last 15 years with super consistency. 83 wins, 35 pole positions and 348 top tens is remarkable in an era were NASCAR is very competitive and has some excellent drivers. He’s beaten the likes of Kyle Busch, Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick and Tony Stewart.

Yes, Richard Petty will always be “The King” with his 200 wins and his 7 championships but things are very different in modern day NASCAR and it’s so tough to dominate with a format which I unfortunately can’t explain in words. But that won’t stop me from trying!

Basically, if you win just one of the first 26 races you will earn a place in the playoffs which is the final 10 races of the season. 16 drivers get into the playoffs so all of the winners from the first 26 races and the best drivers who haven’t won a race make up the 16 drivers. Then in the final 10 races, four drivers are eliminated after every 3 races (the four drivers with the least points after every 3 races). This leaves four drivers in contention at the final event in Homestead-Miami to win the championship and whoever finishes the highest out of those 4 drivers will win the championship. The playoffs were introduced in 2004 and the format is still used today, with some small tweaks.

Essentially, you can get away without winning a race all season. by being super consistent, and can still win the championship. NASCAR initially brought “The Chase” now called the “Playoffs” to stop drivers winning the championship on consistency but you still can. Ryan Newman very nearly did this in 2014 but came 2nd, losing out to Kevin Harvick. All of this shows that you can almost luck into a championship and there are so many variables which means you can lose a championship shot in one chance. One bad race within the playoff season means that you’re in serious trouble of being eliminated from the playoffs, yet Johnson has overcame all of the potential problems of the format and came out on top every season.

Quite often, the playoff format is used to criticise Johnson such as his “lucky” championship win when he only won 2 races prior to the playoffs. But, even if the playoffs weren’t a thing and Johnson only a handful of titles I still feel that he is the greatest (or at least on par with the great Richard Petty) because nobody has been able to perform the way he has for as long as he has against the best field of drivers to ever race in NASCAR.

When Jimmie Johnson came into the sport in 2001 he was a complete unknown, so when Rick Hendrick and Jeff Gordon decided to take a punt and take him on to do the full 2002 season after a few one-off races in 2001, it’s not as if Johnson had lots of hype over him like Max Verstappen or Charles Leclerc currently have in Formula One. It came from nowhere really. His only highlight was a massive crash at Watkins Glen in 2000 in the Busch Series, now called the Xfinity Series, which is NASCAR’s Formula 2. It was a massive accident and many feared for Johnson’s life or at least career-threatening injuries. Instead he got out of the car and put his arms in the air like he won a race.

Fast forward 9 seasons and NASCAR has its first five-time consecutive championship. If Johnson’s titles weren’t amazing enough, his ability to finish each of those first nine seasons among the top five in the points standings, resulting in becoming the only driver to qualify for every Chase for the Sprint Cup (the playoffs), simply accentuates his legend. In my opinion the top 5 NASCAR drivers ever are Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, David Pearson, Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson himself. It’s Johnson’s consistency in an era were there’s at least 10 different winners which makes him better than the rest.

When asked about the potential of an unprecedented 8th championship, Johnson said this:

“Sure, I’d love to accomplish these things, but I spend more time worrying about doing a good job than I do about what happens if I do a good job. I mean, I literally wanted to win a race. That was my goal. To have it turn into what it has blown my mind.”

Much of Jimmie Johnson’s success comes from his crew chief Chad Knaus who has been with Johnson every step of the way since Johnson joined Hendrick Motorsports in 2002.

Knaus would always push the limits and has been suspended for multiple races from pushing the limits of a series were car setup is vitally important and finding every thousandth of a second is crucial. Knaus was suspended for one month after he was accused of cheating during Johnson’s 2006 Daytona qualifying run. He had made an illegal adjustment to the rear window, which resulted in his suspension but this wouldn’t stop Johnson from winning that very race, his first of two Daytona 500 wins which is NASCAR’s Superbowl.

Knaus was suspended again in 2007 after NASCAR officials questioned the shape of the fenders on Johnson’s and Jeff Gordon’s cars. Johnson was put to the back of the grid whilst Knaus was fined $100,000 and suspended for six races. Knaus was once again accused by NASCAR officials of a rules violation involving the #48 car of Johnson after it failed pre-race inspection for the Daytona 500 in 2012. Another suspension of six races and another $100,000 was given to him. It just shows the tiny gains that Knaus would try to get and what a good crew chief Jimmie Johnson has. The crew chief makes key strategical calls which has give Johnson many victories over the years. Johnson’s success is Knaus’s success.

31 of Johnson’s victories have come within the final 10 races of the year and you now know (if you didn’t before) that the championship is won within those final 10 races, well… since 2004 anyway. Johnson just loves “the fall” the final part of a NASCAR season and it’s like something switches on inside his mind. There are only 3 tracks on the current NASCAR calendar where the 42-year-old hasn’t won: Kentucky, Chicago and Watkins Glen.

He’s won an incredible 11 times at Dover, 9 wins at Martinsville, 8 at Charlotte and 7 at Texas. This makes him the winningest driver at all of these tracks as well as Kansas, Las Vegas and the Auto Club Speedway. While he isn’t amazing at the restrictor plate races at Daytona and Talladega compared to the likes of Dale Earnhart and Dale Earnhardt Jr he has still won both of those races twice including that incredible 4X2 wide finish at Talladega in 2011. You can argue his other weakness is road course circuits (proper race tracks) since Johnson has only won at Sonoma in 2010 and no other road course.

But the consistency and the attitude of being fast when it matters most is second to none. He’s struggled so far this season with his car and hasn’t found the sweet spot yet and runs 12th in the standings without standing in victory lane. In fact, he’s on a 37 winless race streak, which has been going since Dover in April 2017. But you cannot rule out Jimmie Johnson. He’s the only driver to make the playoffs every single year and as long as he’s in there, you can never say he doesn’t stand a chance of snatching the championship. Is he starting a slow but sure downfall, or is this just a really bad patch for Johnson? I think he’s just had a bit of bad luck and will take a win before the playoffs start in Las Vegas later this year.

The big question is whether he can win an 8th NASCAR title and move away from Earnhardt and Petty to make his own class. If he carries on for until 2020 or 2021 I can see him winning one more championship to add to his 7th within the next 3 years so I believe that he can do it. #48 fans are doubting it though and the loss if the only sponsor that Jimmie Johnson has known, Lowe’s after this season might tell a bigger story.

None of the Hendrick Motorsports drivers have won a race this year and they lie 12th (Johnson), 13th (Chase Elliott), 15th (Alex Bowman), and 20th (William Byron). But with Jimmie Johnson at the wheel, his experience and his motivation to still win means that Johnson and his teammates will surely become a threat sooner rather than later.

NASCAR fans are witnessing one of, if not the greatest driver to get their hands on the wheel of a Stock Car. Jimmie Johnson is the most successful driver in the modern era of NASCAR, and it’s only when a driver retires that we realise how good he or she was. We all know how good Johnson is now so when he does eventually decide to move on NASCAR should thank Jimmie Johnson for everything that he’s done in the sport because drivers like Johnson don’t come along every day.

If you want to see the first three drivers in this series, click or tap or whatever you do these days on the links below:

Lewis Hamilton: Britain’s Greatest Ever Racing Driver

Sebastien Loeb: The French Rally King

Kamui Kobayashi: Fearless and Underrated