Chase marketing slogan should be '15 nations vs. Planet Jimmie'
NASCAR is marketing the drivers in this year's Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup as "16 nations," but maybe it ought to be "15 nations vs. Planet Jimmie."
Jimmie, of course, is Jimmie Johnson, by far the most dominating driver of the sport's modern era. No matter how he's running when the Chase starts every year, Johnson, crew chief Chad Knaus and the entire No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports team seem to find another gear at title time.
Johnson is the defending NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion, having won his sixth title last year. In 12 full seasons in NASCAR's top division, Johnson's average points finish is a remarkable 2.42. Only four times in those 12 seasons has Johnson finished worse than second in points, and his worst points finish was sixth in 2011.
And yet, Johnson is not the favorite to win a record-tying seventh championship this year.
The conventional wisdom seems to be that the favorites are some combinations of Johnson's Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the powerhouse Team Penske Fords of Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano. Johnson and Kevin Harvick seem most often to be in the second tier of favorites, just slightly behind the top four.
Johnson has given his detractors plenty of ammunition, and not just the fact that he had to pumped full of IV fluids after last Saturday night's race at Richmond International Raceway.
After going winless in the first 11 races of the season, from the Coca-Cola 600 in late May until the June Michigan event, Johnson won three times in four starts. But from Kentucky until Watkins Glen, Johnson had the worst five-race stretch of his career, during which time his average finish was a pitiful 33.0.
Quietly, though, Johnson has picked it up, posting four consecutive top 10s and an average finish of 6.25 since Watkins Glen.
And Friday at Chicagoland Speedway, where he was seventh in the opening round of practice, Johnson insisted the Chase is a wholly different animal than NASCAR's regular season.
"It really is its own world," Johnson said of the Chase. "Just like any other sport when the playoffs start, everything starts over on a clean sheet of paper.
Johnson has entered the Chase red hot and won championships and entered the Chase stone cold, like he did last year, and won it all. He cautioned not to read anything into his championship hopes based on his regular season.
"We had a terrible run of races leading into the (2103) Chase and then we got off to a good start and obviously won the championship," said Johnson. "So, I'm reminding myself of that. I do feel like there were a couple of Chases that we had momentum on our side and we came in and got off to a great start and won championships."
Johnson has won 24 of 100 Chase races in his career. No one else in this Chase has won more than the eight Carl Edwards has claimed.
This year, the Chase starts off with 16 drivers competing for the championship. The field will shrink to 12 drivers after three races, eight drivers after six races and four drivers after nine races. The final four will race head's-up in the season-ending Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Johnson said the new format will have drivers and teams trying a variety of plans to advance to the final round. What he doesn't expect is any one driver to dominate.
"I think that's what makes it interesting right now is that there isn't a clear strategy that they can play out," said Johnson. "Winning races does, period; but that's kind of the design of the format to start with. But, I think it would be a stretch if somebody won three or four races in the Chase. That would be really tough to do. So you're going to have to kind of count on points as well."
Johnson is as curious as anyone about this Chase plays out.
"Over the 10 races, a lot can happen," said Johnson. "And this year, with the format changing as dramatically as it has, the opportunity for somebody to stay alive and really; you just need to be hot towards the end, if not really hot in one race. So, we'll just see how it all plays out."
That said, Johnson sees the same title threats as many of the pundits do.
"When I go through my favorites and pick out my top four or fives cars, they are Hendrick vehicles and Penske vehicles," said Johnson.
VIDEO: Jimmie Johnson talks about his quest for a seventh championship
