NASCAR Sprint Cup at Homestead: Why Jimmie Johnson's Days of Domination Are Done

The reign is over, folks. Jimmie Johnson’s stranglehold atop the Sprint Cup heap is over come Sunday, when either Carl Edwards or Tony Stewart will be crowned the new champion and end a five-year run of dominance by Johnson, crew chief Chad Knaus and Hendrick Motorsports.

And I hate to say it, No. 48 fans, but I don’t think they’ll ever get back there.

Sure, that would be to go against half a decade of a proven track record. This team was the unstoppable force, after all, coming back to win the 2006 title in an unlikely fashion and winning more convincingly just about every year. Last year’s utter psyche-out of Denny Hamlin, giving up the points lead at Texas only to quickly reclaim it at Phoenix, may have been the most impressive win yet.

Unfortunately, the law of averages says that runs like this can only last so long. And after more than 50 years of frequently rotating champions—previously, the only driver to ever win three titles in a row was Cale Yarborough in the 1970s—Johnson ripped off half a decade’s worth of hardware in consecutive years. Granted, each title came under the contrived Chase format, and Johnson would only have two titles if the system had never changed, but the rules are the same for everybody.

Johnson’s team won by manipulating those rules better than anybody else in the sport. They were the classic crunch time team, starting off somewhat slow and picking up steam as the season went on, before hitting their stride in the final 10 races or so and blowing everybody else away.

But something just seemed different about the No. 48 team this season. They still had somewhat of a mystique, sure, and come the Chase everybody knew to look out for them. But throughout the regular season, Johnson just didn’t seem as infallible as he had in the past.

The results don’t show it—Johnson was third or better in points from the first Martinsville race through the entire rest of the regular season, and even held the points lead going into Richmond—but perhaps that was the problem. The No. 48 always won by streaking late, not performing well early. And those typical late-season Johnson runs were replaced with mid-pack finishes and even a crash at Charlotte, a track where he won five of six races from 2003-05.

Once a driver loses the magic, especially after holding on for so long, it’s hard to go back to the top. After his three consecutive titles, Yarborough never won another championship. Dale Earnhardt won four of his titles from 1990-94, but never could put together another title run beyond that. Richard Petty did the same thing from 1971-75, and could only muster one more championship in 1979. In other words, 2012 and beyond might not be so bright.

There also seems to be an inevitable power shift coming up in the Hendrick garage. The team’s other returning drivers next season, Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr., are good, but no longer good enough to win championships.

Rick Hendrick will bring in Kasey Kahne and Kenny Francis to the No. 5 car next season, a driver-crew chief pairing with a lot of upside that will likely get precedent as the organization’s future. If Kahne starts hitting his stride, don’t be surprised if the team starts shifting its internal structure around to better aid them.

More than anything, the fact of the matter is that there are a good half dozen teams with serious championship hopes going into any given season. To be able to hold all of those teams off for as long as the No. 48 bunch has is a remarkable achievement, but eventually it’s just going to be too much. Right now, four of those teams are better than Johnson’s under the Chase format. Next year, who knows.

But if five is the limit for the greatest driver of the Chase era (so far), it’s certainly nothing to be ashamed of.