History Suggests Jimmie Johnson Still a Title Favorite, Despite Summer Slump
How can Jimmie Johnson not be the favorite for the Sprint Cup championship?
In the past nine seasons, Johnson has won the title six times. The all-time record, shared by Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt, is seven.
He has already won four races this year. He is fifth in the points standings. All the numbers are in line with his performances in championship seasons of the past. Only once, in 2007, did Johnson lead in points at the end of a regular season.
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Though Johnson and his crew chief, Chad Knaus, who has been with him for his entire career, are reluctant to talk about it, the numbers reveal the existence of a master plan.
| Year | Wins | Average Finish | Laps Led | Earnings |
| 2006 | 5 | 9.7 | 854 | $15,875,125 |
| 2007 | 10 | 10.8 | 1290 | $15,313,920 |
| 2008 | 7 | 10.5 | 1959 | $15,170,464 |
| 2009 | 7 | 11.1 | 2238 | $14,388,237 |
| 2010 | 6 | 12.2 | 1315 | $13,393,186 |
| 2013 | 6 | 10.7 | 1985 | $14,663,155 |
"You know, confidence, even though we've won six championships, and a bunch of races (74), for me at least, it never has any effect on the present," Johnson said on May 11 after winning at Kansas Speedway.
Oh, no. He takes them one season at a time, one race at a time, one lap at a time ...
"It's easy for even the successful teams in the sport to have confidence waver over the course of a weekend, over a stretch of time over the course of a year, whatever it might be," Johnson added. "It comes in and out, and honestly, we live and die by the NASCAR timing and scoring, and the last time we were on the track it's all you have to live off of."
So humble is Johnson, it seems forced. A man with six championships naturally has a hard time explaining it away to good fortune, clean living and family contentment.
Humility is more of a chore for Knaus, who is happy to be referred to as brilliant. Asked in the same media conference about comparing his team with points leader and reigning champion Kevin Harvick, Knaus said, "I think we execute better than they do consistently, but as far as having the raw speed, I think they've got us beat right now, so we're working diligently on that right now to try to figure out how we get a little more speed out of the '48' car."
(The "48" car is, uh, theirs.)
"It could be the '4' (Harvick). It could be the '22' (Joey Logano). It could be the, it could be the '19' (Carl Edwards), whoever it is," Knaus said, "so we just got to try to broach that, and once we get there, we're going to be where we need to be."
By definition, once they're there, they're...there.
Johnson, by his own admission, is in a bit of a slump. In the past six races, he has finished, in order, 22nd, 15th, sixth, 10th, 39th and fourth.
As far back as May 31, after Johnson won his fourth race of the season and 10th at the track in Dover, Delaware, he said, "In the raw speed department, I feel like we're lacking a little bit and we are aggressively going after that."
Those words could have been spoken now, or even when the Chase begins on Sept. 20 at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Illinois. It begins and ends at tracks—Homestead-Miami Speedway is the site of the grand finale—that host only one race each year.
Of the other eight, Johnson won at three—Texas, Kansas and Dover—earlier this year.
A pre-Chase slump is business as usual. Let's look at the past.
Johnson and Knaus prefer not to acknowledge it, but a considerable block of evidence suggests that they have always sacrificed at least part of the summer in order to be ready for the fall, and by extension, the Chase, and by further extension, the Sprint Cup championship.
In his first title year, 2006, when it was still the Nextel, not Sprint, Cup, Johnson's average finish in the final five regular-season races was 15.2. The following year, he endured a summertime slump of seven races in which the average finish was 24.1. He averaged 19th over three races near the end of the 2008 regular season.
In 2009, Johnson slogged through the final six regular-season races with an average finish of 18.8. Beginning in July 2010, he lumbered through seven races at a 23.3 norm. In his most recent championship season, 2013, he closed the regular season with four races at a 36.0 average.
Then Johnson breezed through the Chase with two victories and a 5.1 average finish.
| Driver | Victories |
| Jimmie Johnson | 74 |
| Tony Stewart | 36 |
| Jeff Gordon | 34 |
| Kyle Busch | 33 |
| Matt Kenseth | 33 |
| Kevin Harvick | 28 |
| Kurt Busch | 27 |
| Denny Hamlin | 25 |
| Carl Edwards | 24 |
| Dale Earnhardt Jr. | 20 |
In his career, Johnson has won 42 races at the 10 tracks where the Chase is contested. That's 56.8 percent of his 74 victories. The schedule seems tilted in his favor, but given his statistics, it would be hard to come up with 10 tracks where he wouldn't have a statistical advantage.
Over the course of his career—2002 was his first full season—Johnson has won more than twice as many races as any other driver.
Where does that leave him now? He turns 40 on Sept. 17. Perhaps he is no longer at his peak. Perhaps the twilight is nearing.
Johnson's detractors have always claimed that his secret was Knaus and Hendrick Motorsports and having more resources at his disposal than anyone else.
His humility plays right into his critics' hands.
After he won at Kansas, Johnson said, "This track, I feel, is weighted more toward the performance of the car than what the driver does."
The remark was in response to a question about the fact that Johnson has won more races at 1.5-mile tracks, 23, than anyone else in history.
"On the big tracks, aero(dynamics), balance, the engine performance, the small details that separate our teams from others, that's where you find that 10th of a second that puts you in the winner's circle," Johnson added. "I'd just say it's the equipment I'm sitting in."
What's he supposed to do? Turn it down?
It seems reasonable to conclude that Knaus has always longed for the changing of the the leaves amid the summer heat. He has experimented. He has stashed his best equipment back at the shop, ready to be rolled out again when the Chase arrives.
It's smart. Knaus is smart.
Although a bit out of context, another remark of Johnson's, uttered on July 6 after he finished second in Daytona Beach, Florida, might be telling come Chase time.
"Being in the sport as long as I have, you learn how to turn it off and turn it on," he said, offering a response to a question about a grueling race that ran far into the night but applicable as a metaphor for his entire career.
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All quotes are taken from NASCAR media, team and manufacturer sources unless otherwise noted.
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