Johnson races past NASCAR records with fourth championship in a row

By David Mirsky

Jimmie top NASCAR winner ever

MIAMI (Hollywood Today) 11/22/09—H0omestead –Miami, Florida was the site for the Ford 400, the final NASCAR race of the year.  Today’s race not only was the ending to a great year of racing, it’s also the race that was going to name this year’s champion.  Basically, there were two drivers with a chance of winning the title: Mark Martin, who has never won a championship, and Jimmie Johnson, last year’s champion.  Johnson, favored to win an unprecedented 4^th championship in a row didn’t let the fans, the analysts and himself down.  Needing only to finish today’s race in 26^th place to secure the championship, Johnson crossed the finish line in 5^th place.

The race was not without incidents, with only a minimal amount of yellow flags, including Juan Pablo Montoya and Tony Stewart who bumped each other, eventually sending Montoya to the garage for repairs that cost him a top 10 finish, and an unusual pile up on pit road that ended the day for several cars.   But it was Denny Hamlin who won his 4^th race of the year, fending off a hard charging Jeff Burton, and 4 time champion, Jeff Gordon.  19 year old Joey Logano, who finished the race in 20^th position, was named this year’s rookie of the year.

Not only was this the first time in 61 years of NASCAR racing that a driver has won four consecutive championships, it was also a first of another kind.  Hendrick Motorsports and their team of all star drivers finished the season 1, 2, and 3 in the championship points standings.  Johnson, Martin, and Gordon brought the honors to a conspicuously missing Rich Hendrick who was absent from the festivities due to a family emergency.

Sprint, the sponsors of NASCAR Cup Racing presented Johnson with a huge check of more than $6,500,000.00 for his championship efforts, making Johnson’s career earnings of more than $65 million in 8 years.  The 2010 season starts up again in February with the Daytona 500.  A month later in Bahrain, the Formula 1 season will kick off.  This is the first time in years that the F1 race schedule will begin in the mid east, rather than in Australia.