For those that questioned the Team 48 Juggernaut — shame on you.
Jimmie Johnson is right back to doing what he is known best for. Winning races and proving the critics wrong. After weeks of not winning a race and looking increasingly like he would be one of those desperate drivers on the Chase bubble in August, he has quickly won two in a row and put rumors of his demise to rest.
Johnson had tied his record of the furthest into a season without capturing a win. He also went 12 races into the 2003 season before getting that first win, which also came at the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte.
But the biggest reminder that Jimmie Johnson is back to form? A noticable change in his walk, which can only mean that golden horseshoe is back lodged in his…well, it’s back to working it’s magic.
The debate has been raging for several years now. The 48 team is a championship team, and Johnson is a great driver, no doubt about that. You don’t just win six championships by fluke. But, fans cannot deny that Johnson is lucky too.
Throughout his 12-year career, Johnson has been the beneficiary of some pretty quirky stuff on track. Whether it be a caution coming out at just the right time, or a competitor of his suffering a problem, Jimmie has been able to luck his way into good finishes and wins more than once.
At Charlotte two weeks ago, Johnson found Lady Luck smiling upon him when he entered pit road moments after a caution waved for Kurt Busch’s blown engine. That effectively gave him a free pit stop, as he was able to inherit the lead once most of the rest of the field made their stops under the yellow. Later in the 600, Jimmie was helped by a late caution that allowed him to close up a big deficit he had to the leaders. Both breaks helped him net his first win of 2014.
And at Dover on Sunday, two of the guys that could’ve stopped Johnson from claiming his record ninth victory at the track encountered trouble.
Kyle Busch led Friday’s opening practice session and was fast all weekend. On Sunday, Busch streaked out to an early lead, only to drop back a few position after the first restart of the day on lap 71. On lap 126, Busch collided with Clint Bowyer as the two raced hard off turn 4, shoving the No. 18 Toyota into the wall and ending Kyle’s race early (and keeping him from sweeping the weekend. Don’t worry, at least he has all those Truck and Nationwide wins to validate his career).
For Jimmie, that was one guy he didn’t need to worry about anymore.
After Busch’s debacle, Jimmie found himself tangling with another fast cat — the No. 4 Chevy of Kevin Harvick. I personally thought Harvick stood the best chance of beating the 48 car Sunday, as evidenced by the strength he showed on an early restart in which he took the lead with a move on the bottom side, which is typically not the preferred lane to restart on a track like Dover. When Happy took off on the bottom and began to pull away from Johnson, it looked like JJ had met his match for the day.
But as if touched by an angel, the 48 team had another prayer answered.
After a lengthy delay for a piece of the concrete track breaking apart in turn two, Harvick suffered a flat tire immediately after the ensuing restart on lap 165 (that’s also a good point to mention — Johnson managed to miss the concrete). When Harvick limped to the pits, Matt Kenseth assumed the race lead, but JJ wasn’t far behind. The 48 Chevy only needed 13 laps to get by Kenseth, leading to spotter Earl Barban to utter those now famous words on the radio — “New leader, forty-eight.”
From that point on, Jimmie finished off the final 222 laps virtually unchallenged. Now, the series heads to Pocono, a place that Johnson dominated a year ago with a near-perfect driver rating of 148.1 points (out of a maximum 150). Can Superman make it three wins in a row?
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