Jimmie Johnson ties NASCAR record with seventh Cup title

Johnson is attempting to match Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty with a NASCAR-record seven championships.

Johnson dominated NASCAR from 2006 to 2010, securing a record five successive championships, before claiming a sixth in 2013 and seventh at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the last race of 2016. Based on that lack of performance and consistency, I don’t know a lot of people outside the Hendrick Motorsports camp that gave the No. 48 much of a chance of winning the championship.

Despite the late restarts that helped him, Johnson deserves every accolade that has and will be bestowed upon him.

There’s no real reason to believe Johnson, now 41, will not get there and take first place on NASCAR’s all-time list for himself.

Then prior to the race, NASCAR officials took issue with the A-post on the No. 48 auto and were forced to start at the rear of the field.

To win the title, Johnson had to finish ahead of three other final-four drivers.

After a 30-minute red flag, the race got back underway with Jimmie Johnson serving as the highest running Chase driver.

But Johnson’s drive to race on is not propelled by some grand quest to be the only driver with eight titles.

“I felt like something was going to happen, and I was going to be OK with it”, Johnson said. Then I get the restart of my life at the end and I get clear off of Turn 2, and…

As Johnson took the white flag, leading the field on the last lap Sunday night, Knaus banged on the side of his seat like a jockey working his horse to the finish line, then he stood up and cheered the vehicle on.

The 36-year-old was caught up in a massive crash that was instigated when rivals Carl Edwards and Joey Logano tangled with just 10 laps to go in the decider. The best finisher among the four drivers will be the 2016 champion.

Edwards was in position to win until a caution with 10 laps remaining set up a wild sequence that ruined his title hopes. “All things considered, we had a really good run tonight – just not good enough”.

The move cost Edwards and Logano. “That’s all you can ask for”. Preparation meets opportunity, meets execution. The California-born Johnson-personable, sunny, a guy who started out as an off-road racer and now competes in triathlons when he’s not behind the wheel-may not project the outsized swagger of his fellow all-timers, but he has proven himself every inch their equal on the race track.

It had only been an hour since he put his stamp on history by joining Richard Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt as the only drivers to hit the exclusive seven-time champ club. “Like is this really happening?”

“Well, you are supposed to be side-by-side entering the box, and he was all the way behind me”. That didn’t sound like you. “I dreamed of it maybe being a career path for me”.

On tying Petty and Earnhardt, he stated, “It’s big”.

Edwards led 47 laps and was in front of the Championship 4 most of the way. It could have been a death knell for a team that had never won at Homestead. So, Edwards tried to block Logano on the restart, wound up wrecked, and it was Johnson who drove through the wreckage to take the championship lead.

“I’m still in shock”, added vehicle owner Rick Hendrick.

“It made me think back to the moment when Dale Sr. won the Daytona 500”. But we are so proud of him. It was also accomplished in different ways and different formats. “What a great representative of the sport he is”. The Hendrick Motorsports team had been accused of manipulating a body panel, and Johnson had to start last in the field. “I’m excited to see he and Chad try to break the record now, because we’re tied”. The team did a great job all day. I honestly feel like I’m playing with house money. “Kyle (Petty) told me his dad was never stuck on numbers but just loved racing”. I never aspired to be a champion. “This is life. I just risked too much. None of us is as young as we once were, and I look forward to the future with these guys”. You can say luck, whatever you want to say, but those guys battled. The best equipment, the brightest minds, the most accomplished organization in the sport. Finalists Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson and Joey Logano are vying for the title. The aforementioned thief in the night, Johnson, emerged.