I'm Just Sayin'...
By Matthew Scott

Johnson makes his return at Phoenix
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

Is that a sleeping dog someone just woke up? No, it's much worse. That's Jimmie Johnson.

Let's hop into the way-back machine and return to Monday, March 17th. Jeff Burton has just won the Food City 500 at Bristol, Kyle Busch sits atop the Sprint Cup standings, and all the way back in 13th position, a whopping 201 points behind the Shrub, sits the two-time defending Sprint Cup champion, Jimmie Johnson.

It was odd, weird even, to see Johnson and his team struggle, to be outside of the magic Top 12 cut-off for Chase qualifiers. It was March 17th, and there was a lot of racing to be done, and there was no need to add insult to the injury that was Johnson's first five outings. But no, some people had to point and snicker, laughing in the face of NASCAR's most dominant team. And so now here we are, one month later, and on behalf of every other team in the garage, let me say this to those who mocked the 48:

Gee, thanks for nothing.

Following his win Saturday night at Phoenix, Johnson now stands fourth in the Sprint Cup standings, 99 behind the current leader, Burton, and just 19 behind 2nd-place Shrub. Johnson's first five races were, by his standards, a disaster. In those first five races, Johnson scored 581 points and had an average finish of 17.8. In the three races since, he has scored 535 points, and his average finish has jumped to a mere 6.66…an interesting number for those out there who believe HMS to be the home of racing's Underworld.

None of this should come as any surprise to any race fan with a memory span longer than four seconds. With all due respect to their racing accomplishments, this wasn't Hut Stricklin or Dave Marcis making the most out of their situation. This was a 2-time Cup champion, in the best equipment in the garage, having a less-than-stellar start to the season. By contrast, Brian Vickers, David Ragan, and David Gilliland were receiving rave reviews for their first-five performance, yet they all found themselves looking up at Johnson's 13th-place standing. A lot of people have enjoyed the relative struggles of Johnson (and teammate/owner Jeff Gordon), but even if you're a Dale Jr. fan and are currently riding high as the number one gun at HMS, don't fool yourself. JJ and JG have six cups between them for a reason. They're great, and their teams are, too.

Over the past couple of seasons, Jimmie Johnson has been arguably the best driver in NASCAR. His crew chief, Chad Knaus, has been the best crew chief in the sport, and that's not arguable. They work so well as a pair, that what happened in Phoenix should send shudders down the spine of everyone else in the garage. Johnson and Knaus are two of the coolest, calmest, most level-headed people in the sport. At times, they seem almost robotic. At Phoenix, they broke character, and chose not to pit, gambling they would have enough fuel to make it to the end. Gambling with race cars and points is not something Johnson and Knaus have been known for, and that thinking has served them well. They have, after all, won the last two championships with that level-headed paradigm. In the desert, they became gamblers. With the ten-point bonus for race wins added to the Chase last season, Johnson and Knaus might be willing to gamble even more for race wins, thanks to their gun-slinging victory in Phoenix. And that's a scary thought for the rest of the Cup regulars.

Chad Knaus admitted his team spent too much time last season focused on getting the old car into victory lane and the 48 team their second straight championship. As it turns out, that focus, and those early-season snickers this year, may just get them a history-equaling threepeat.

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