Next two races should say much about Johnson's shot at No. 7
I know there are a lot of questions being asked about whether No. 48 fans should be worried. Just look at the numbers -- they speak a lot.
Since Jimmie Johnson won the Michigan race in June, he's only garnered two top-five finishes. The other negative indicator is Jimmie really hasn't been leading very many laps.
We all kind of figured that after he was solidly in the Chase, they might have been working on some things to try once in the Chase. I kind of figured Chicago was going to be a real indicator of where the No. 48 really was. After all the practices in Chicago, I really thought the two best race cars in the garage were the No. 48 and the No. 2 of Brad Keselowski.
Obviously, the No. 2 didn't let me down in my thoughts. Unfortunately, the No. 48 car truly did let me down. I know they had the hiccup on the pit stop, but you know what, Kevin Harvick also had a hiccup on pit road, but had a good enough car to recover, so you can't really blame it on that.
I really believe these next two races are critical and will tell us a lot about the No. 48. Jimmie has a total of 12 wins at our next two tracks. There have been three wins at Loudon and then nine wins at Dover. So you really have to say that Dover will be the real measuring stick.
So what I might say to a real diehard Jimmie Johnson fan is that yes, you might be tossing and turning a little bit at night right now, but don't panic just yet.
Let's just wait and watch these next two weeks.
President Obama calls Jimmie Johnson the 'Michael Jordan of NASCAR'
