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NASCAR Championship Fast Laps

by Charlie Turner

Thanks for stopping by OnPitRow.com and the Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie blog. The best NASCAR and IndyCar news and opinion, exclusive pictures and video. I'm Charlie Turner. Follow me on Twitter @onpitrow

November 26, 2009 9:39 pm CST No Comments

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NASCAR drivers don’t come much more dominant than Jimmie Johnson and Hendrick Motorsport’s no. 48 Lowes Chevrolet these last four years. Johnson’s NASCAR results may be drama killing, but they are still the topic of the week.

Check out the Fast Lap Show video this week. Then let us know what you think about these four, fast ones.

Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.

Turn 1 - Now that Jimmie Johnson has his fourth consecutive championship will he be able to show more of his personality?

Turn 2 -Where does Hendrick Motorsports 1-2-3 points finish rank in importance in NASCAR history

Turn 3 - Which under-achieving organization has laid the best foundation for 2010?

Turn 4 - Where will the #48 team’s greatest competition come from in 2010?

The video tells you what we think. What do you think. And since this is supposed be fast, please limit your answers to Twitter length - 140 characters. We don’t have a way to count your input, so this is the honor system for now.

Filed under: Chase for the Cup, Fast Lap Posts, Fast Lap video, Hendrick Motorsports, Homestead-Miami Speedway, NASCAR, NASCAR video, Sprint Cup Series, jimmie johnson

Tagged with: Ford 400

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Proposition: Jimmie Johnson is the Greatest NASCAR Driver Ever

by Charlie Turner

November 23, 2009 11:28 pm CST No Comments

Mark Martin calls him Superman.

But his crew chief, Chad Knaus, gets almost as much credit for Jimmie Johnson’s success as Johnson does himself.

Johnson has won 47 times in 291 Sprint Cup starts. He is the only driver ever to win four straight Cup championships.

And he is resented for his dominance. No problem.

That, in itself, isn’t new to NASCAR. Half of the stands cheered wildly for Dale Earnhardt Sr in his heyday. Darrell Waltrip too. They still do for Jeff Gordon. The other half booed their voices hoarse for all three.

It’s different for Johnson. The water-cooler talk and internet buzz - blog posts and tweets - mostly blame J J for all of NASCAR’s problems. From declining TV ratings to empty grandstand seats; it’s all because Jimmie Johnson is too good.

“He isn’t flashy enough. He’s so perfect. Why doesn’t he wreck someone? Or flip ‘em off? Or punch ‘em? I’m so tired of him winning all the time! It’s that damn Chase! He wouldn’t win if it wasn’t for the damn Chase!”

That’s what they say.

I have watched Jimmie, and listened to him, up close. I’ve watched his eyes as he answered questions. Questions that, I’m sure he had answered a hundred time before. The sincerity that he displays is real. I am convinced that nobody who had the chance to observe him that closely, could come away disliking him. He’s a good guy.

He’s the greatest NASCAR driver in the sport today.

Photo credit: BethAnne Heisler - On Pit Row

Filed under: Chase for the Cup, NASCAR, Sprint Cup Series, jimmie johnson

Tagged with: Chad Knaus, Darrell Waltrip

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NASCAR’s Hidden 2009 Hall of Fame Performance

by Charlie Turner

November 22, 2009 10:03 pm CST 1 Comment

Kyle Busch’s season stunk, I guess. I mean he didn’t even qualify for the Chase to the Sprint Cup.

He did win the NASCAR Nationwide Series championship. But, come on.

The Shrub only won 20 races in NASCAR’s top three touring series.

Last year, Rowdy was really good. He had 22 victories in 2008. And he actually made the Chase.

Seriously folks. 44 major series NASCAR wins in two years?

There will likely be people inducted into the new NASCAR Hall of Fame over the next 10 years with fewer wins than that in their entire, spectacular careers.

This weekend - maybe this season - belonged to Jimmie Johnson and his unprecedented four consecutive Sprint Cup championships.

But the back-to-back seasons that Kyle Busch has strung together deserve more recognition than they’ve received.

Photo credit: BethAnne Heisler - OnPitRow.com

Filed under: Chase for the Cup, Homestead-Miami Speedway, Kyle Busch, NASCAR, Nationwide Series

Tagged with: Ford 300, NASCAR Hall of Fame

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A Passionate Lack of Passion for Jimmie Johnson and the Chase

by Chris Leone, Special To NASCAR commentary and pictures,2010 NASCAR schedule,NASCAR video, Bench Racing With Steve and Charlie

I do weekly Fantasy Pick'Em columns here at OPR, as well as the occasional opinion and analysis piece. I also provide the IZOD IndyCar Series coverage. For more on that, head to my site, OpenWheelAmerica.com. My Twitter handle is @christopherlion.

November 16, 2009 5:03 pm CST 1 Comment

So this is it - the Sprint Cup title is pretty much locked up, and for the fourth consecutive year, the hardware goes home to Jimmie Johnson. That’s right, Jimmie Johnson has been the active champion of Sprint Cup for the length of one presidential term.

During their reign as the acting president and vice president of the Chase for the Sprint Cup, Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus have done everything right - suppressing any and all challenges from their opposition, making up for their mistakes, playing the game (so to speak) calmly. They are tacticians in every sense. Were an equivalent to the No. 48 team in the White House, we’d be hailing them as the best presidential administration ever.

But all that the Johnson regime inspires in NASCAR fans seems to be a lack of passion - a growing disinterest in the sport. Like the Edmonton Oilers of the 1980s, the Dallas Cowboys of the 1990s, and the New York Yankees of many different and disparate eras, their eventual triumph is a foregone conclusion.

And in a sport where every race is a playoff, so to speak, that’s not a good thing.

Truthfully, this is all the Chase’s fault. NASCAR never needed playoffs; when you have everybody competing against one another every week, it’s already a best-of-30 series between every team in the sport. Towards the end, somebody gets “eliminated” every week, even though they’re still present on the track.

Johnson’s domination of the Chase format is impressive, yes. But wouldn’t it be far more impressive to see him making incredible comebacks every year? Right now, Johnson has a 103-point advantage over Mark Martin for the title going into the final race of the season at Homestead.

Under the old format, that would only be an eight point advantage over Tony Stewart.

And NASCAR claims that the Chase makes things more competitive.

Things went the same way in 2008, when the Chase spread Johnson and Carl Edwards out by an extra 85 points going into Homestead. Instead of a 141-point advantage, Johnson would have only had 56 over Cousin Carl.

And you know what? One of NASCAR’s most affable drivers would have backflipped his way to becoming the first driver to win championships in NASCAR’s top two series in the same year. The 16-point advantage would have fallen just short of the 1992 duel between Alan Kulwicki and Bill Elliott in terms of excitement - that year, the margin of victory was a mere 10 points.

With no Chase, Johnson would have maintained his 2006 championship, the most impressive of the bunch, but only by four points over Matt Kenseth. But 2007 would have gone to the rightful champion, Jeff Gordon, whose dominance (and 7.3 average finish) easily trumped his teammate. And right now, we’d be asking if Gordon, who would be only 51 points back, could win a record-tying seventh championship (he also would have won in 2004).

The problem with Johnson is his lack of charisma, and everyone - from the higher-ups in NASCAR to my mother, who pin-pointed the problem while I was talking to her today - knows it. If Jimmie Johnson was as polarizing as Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt, or even Kyle Busch, the fans would be a lot more interested. But Johnson doesn’t do anything statistically that Gordon never accomplished (or nearly accomplished - had he been a little better in 1996, he’d have four titles in a row), wreck people in the name of victory like Earnhardt, or piss people off like Shrub.

Fans watch the races hoping, more often than not in vain, that Johnson will make a mistake and fall out of the race. It doesn’t happen, and that’s the end of it. The championship is decided, we collectively sigh, and we move on to football.

The sport needs solutions to this problem, and regardless of what anybody says, it is a huge problem. What we have with Johnson is a driver who may be the greatest of all-time in taking advantage of fortuitous situations. You know, in his entire Busch/Nationwide career, he only won one race? In that year, 2001, he was beaten in the points by Tony Raines. Think we’d be talking the same way about Tony Raines right now had Rick Hendrick picked him and not Johnson?

One answer is to “Jimmie-proof” the Chase, which the writers on NASCAR.com have discussed. While it would allow the sport to maintain its Chase format, it’s unfair to mess with the entire schedule based on the strengths of one driver. Many of Johnson’s best tracks just so happen to fall at the end of the year. Again, fortuitous situation.

The better solution, however, is to shoot the Chase to hell. Obviously, NASCAR won’t do that, because it brings in more money in the short term - but when the fans stop watching because the championship is a foregone conclusion, they’ll seriously reconsider. The past four years would have been a lot more interesting without it, and everyone who has looked at the statistics knows it.

Obviously, neither of those things are going to happen. So I venture one last suggestion out to the motorsports world, an idea which is so far-fetched, so desperate to give NASCAR a new champion, that it makes far more sense than anybody would ever be willing to admit. The side effects would be nothing but positives for not only NASCAR, but also motorsports around the world.

Go race for US F1, Jimmie.

Peter Windsor, are you listening?

Filed under: Chase for the Cup, jimmie johnson

Tagged with: Chase for the Cup, jimmie johnson

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Pat Tryson May Get Kicked Out of the Crew Chief Union

by Charlie Turner

November 14, 2009 10:09 am CST No Comments

Well that’s what Mindy thinks anyway. I mean how can a guy show up one day a week and out think 42 full-timers on the pit boxes of NASCAR?

Mindy has a business proposition for JR Motorsports too. It’s all here in the latest Monday Morning Crew Chief video with our Mindy Monday. Watch it now.

Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.

Filed under: Brad Kesolowski, Chase for the Cup, Danica Patrick, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Mark Martin, Monday Morning Crew Chief, NASCAR, NASCAR video, Penske Racing, Texas Motor Speedway, jimmie johnson

Tagged with: David Stremme, Mindy Monday, Pat Tryson

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Fast Laps from the Land of Ten Gallon Hats

by Charlie Turner

November 13, 2009 11:09 pm CST 2 Comments

We had a blast at Texas Motor Speedway last weekend. It is truly the Great American Speedway.

The happenings there had much to do with our Fast Lap questions this week On Pit Row. Here they are and here is a video of our Fast lap debate on the radio show.

Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.

Turn 1 - Is the Chase back on now that Jimmie Johnson had problems in Texas?

Turn 2 - Would Kyle Busch’s season be saved if he had won the triple?

Turn 3 - Who is to blame for Kyle running out of gas?

Turn 4 - What does Dale Earnhardt Jr have to do?

Tell us what you think. And since this is supposed be fast, please limit your answers to Twitter length - 140 characters. We don’t have a way to count your input, so this is the honor system for now.

Filed under: Chase for the Cup, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kyle Busch, NASCAR, NASCAR video, On Pit Row The Fastest Two Hours on Radio, Texas Motor Speedway, jimmie johnson

Tagged with: Fast Lap questions, NASCAR tweets, twitter

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