Charlotte Victory Is Great for Jimmie Johnson but Just so-so for Everyone Else

Oh, that sneaky Jimmie Johnson. The nerve of him and his diabolical, scheming crew chief, Chad Knaus!

Johnson, the six-time Sprint Cup champion, won the Bank of America 500 and officially advanced into the Chase's Round of 8 for the first time since the current format was adopted.

Category	Career	Season to Date	Last 3 Races
Wins	78	3	1
Top-5 Finishes	215	8	1
Top-10 Finishes	327	13	3
Average Finish	12.1	14.2	5.33
Laps Led	18,338	629	245
Poles	35	1	0

This isn't Dale Earnhardt in the Daytona 500. Nor is it Arnold Palmer in the PGA. This is the third year of the elimination format. To the extent that this convoluted path to a championship is something of a game show, Johnson has so far made the right moves. His bid for a record-tying championship—Richard Petty and Earnhardt won seven—is successfully through Door No. 2.

Paul Sancya/Associated Press

Johnson is free to play around now for the next two weeks on house money—the next race is the Hollywood Casino 400 in Kansas City, Kansas—and get serious for the Round of 8 that follows.

"I don't know what our plan would be at Kansas (Oct. 16), but it certainly opens up the book, whatever opportunities may present themselves," Johnson said. "It just lets me go to Talladega (October 23) and not worry about anything, which is fantastic. I can just get up in the race and mix it up and race hard."

A victory punches a ticket into the next round. The other 11 drivers will be reduced to seven—Johnson already having claimed his admission—over the next two weeks.

The Charlotte Motor Speedway bump in the Chase road wasn't supposed to be this way. A mistake was supposed to be fatal. One wrong move would make any erring driver desperate because the format would make him have to win one of the next two.

How about, oh, many wrong moves?

On Friday, one of the contenders, Joey Logano, had said: "This second round, this is game time now. I think my team is in great shape."

Wrong. Tires popped on Logano's Ford twice—one on the left, the other on the right—and twice it caromed off barriers. Somehow it was running at the end, 80 laps behind and 36th in a field of 40. Among the few soon to be fewer, Logano's was just another sad story from a day of woe. 

Only five Chase survivors finished in the top 10, Two more were in the second 10. Denny Hamlin, Austin Dillon, Chase Elliott, Logano and Kevin Harvick all wound up 30th or worse.

Over? Far from it. All the popping tires, expired engines and crash victims canceled each other out. Hamlin's engine failed after he led 52 laps, yet, after being credited with 30th place, he is still in position to advance into the Round of 8.

Nam Y. Huh/Associated Press

If anyone might have outdueled Johnson at the end, it was rookie Chase Elliott, who led 103 laps. Elliott is Johnson's Hendrick Motorsports teammate. He was an unwitting victim of a chain-reaction melee that occurred on Lap 259 and damaged six in the Chase among 12 cars involved.

The failures were so widespread that no one left Charlotte Motor Speedway desperate. Concerned? Yes.

"Definitely, this, it seems like, has been a troublesome day for a lot of guys," Elliott said to NBC Sports. "Hopefully, we can just try to have another car like we had today and not make any mistakes next week."

Kansas, like Charlotte, is a 1.5-mile track. Its race could be similar. More canceling out could occur. Then, the Round of 12 ends at Talladega, a track famous for unpredictable mayhem.

Matt Kenseth's Toyota followed Johnson's Chevy across the finish line at a safe distance after the race waited a day while Hurricane Matthew scraped the Carolinas' coast. 

Johnson alone is secure into the next round. Even Kenseth remains vividly susceptible to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. The game show has been designed to amuse and surprise, but the first race of the Round of 12 was a masterpiece of imprecision, dumb luck and comedy.

One of the lucky ones, Kyle Busch—who rallied to finish sixth after a tire failure occurred at an opportune time—said, "That all worked out for us. All I heard over the radio was it (the tire) was 'a delamination problem.' I don't know what the heck that means."

Alone in security and above the mayhem, Johnson has turned his season around at just the right time, which is what six-time champions do. It is not unprecedented that he is sitting pretty.

NBC analyst Jeff Burton told the television audience: "Without question, Jimmie Johnson is one of the all-time best. Records don't lie. They speak for themselves and he is one of the top four or five drivers in NASCAR's history. Period. End of story."

Johnson, 41, has won three races this year and 78 in his career. The first two victories occurred in the season's second and fifth races. In a span of 17 races leading up to this one, he managed to finish in the top five just once. In the past three, he has been eighth, seventh and first.

Rallying with a championship on the line has been business as usual for most of Johnson's career.

Sarah Crabill/Getty Images

The lingering lesson of Charlotte is that advance estimates of attrition were underestimated.

Hamlin assessed the new reality when interviewed by NBC Sports: "I think each race you're going to have a handful that are going to have issues. Kansas, I don't think, will be any different and Talladega, we know, will be crazy. That's why we're not out of it by any means. We just have a little hole we have to dig out of."

Desperation will come in a week, when someone—or, more likely, several—falls off the pace for a second time. Then lurks Talladega, a temple of both ecstasy and agony.

Be safe out there. And good luck.

Follow @montedutton on Twitter.

All quotes are taken from NASCAR media, team and manufacturer sources unless otherwise noted.