With a fifth-place (5th) finish in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Jimmie Johnson captured an unprecedented fourth straight NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) driver’s championship (2006 – ‘09). While Denny Hamlin collected the 267-lap Ford 400 win, the limelight belonged to Johnson, who is the only driver in the 61-year history of the sport to win four consecutive titles.
Johnson’s title run also completed Hendrick Motorsports’ sweep of the top three positions in the final standings, the first time an organization has achieved that distinction. In winning his fourth Chase, Johnson finished 141 points ahead of Mark Martin, who entered Sunday’s race 108 points behind his teammate and finished 12th.
Jeff Gordon secured a third-place finish in the points with a sixth-place run.
Johnson arrived at Homestead haunted by his crash on the third lap of the Dickies 500 two weeks ago at Texas Motor Speedway, which whittled his 184-point lead to 73. Johnson overcame that setback with a dominant victory at Phoenix last week to take a 108-point lead over Martin into the finale of the 10-race Chase.
“You know the pressure of winning the fourth didn’t really hit me until I hit the fence at Texas,’’ Johnson said. Auto Racing Daily
RANK DRIVER POINTS WINS 1 Jimmie Johnson 6652 7 2 Mark Martin 6511 5 3 Jeff Gordon 6473 1 4 Kurt Busch 6446 2 5 Denny Hamlin 6335 4 6 Tony Stewart 6309 4 7 Greg Biffle 6292 0 8 Juan Montoya 6252 0 9 Ryan Newman 6175 0 10 Kasey Kahne 6128 2 11 Carl Edwards 6118 0 12 Brian Vickers 5929 1 13 Kyle Busch 4457 4 14 Matt Kenseth 4389 2 15 Clint Bowyer 4359 0 16 David Reutimann 4221 1 17 Jeff Burton 4022 0 18 Marcos Ambrose 3830 0 19 Kevin Harvick 3796 0 20 Joey Logano* 3791 1 21 Casey Mears 3759 0 22 Jamie McMurray 3604 1 23 Martin Truex Jr. 3503 0 24 A.J. Allmendinger 3476 0 25 Dale Earnhardt Jr. 3422 0 26 Elliott Sadler 3350 0 27 David Ragan 3252 0 28 Sam Hornish Jr. 3203 0 29 Reed Sorenson 3147 0 30 Bobby Labonte 3128 0
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