Clutch
Now that Jimmie Johnson has won four straight and lapped the Chase field, you might as well cancel Sunday's race - who really wants to see Greg Biffle win his fourth straight Homestead race - and give Johnson the 2007 trophy.
Assuming Johnson comes into Sunday (a) alive and (b) breathing, he'll win his second straight Cup championship. That puts him in pretty elite company - only 14 drivers have multiple NASCAR titles. Of those, nine have gone back to back: Buck Baker (1956-57), Lee Petty (1958-59), Joe Weatherly (1962-63), David Pearson (1968-69), Richard Petty (1971-72 and 1974-75), Cale Yarborough (threepeat: 1976-78), DW (1981-82), Dale Earnhardt (1986-87, 1990-91 and 1993-94) Jeff Gordon (1997-98).
It's way too early to enter Johnson into the is-he-the-greatest-driver-of-all-time sweepstakes. Among active drivers, the debate begins and ends with Four Time and his 81 Cup wins.
But is Johnson the best clutch driver of all time?
Consider:
* After falling out of the lead and 68 points behind Jeff Gordon in this year's Chase, he has won four of the final five races of this season. (They haven't even run the fifth one yet.) More impressively, he was won two of those races in the COT and two more in the old ride.
* In 2006, Johnson was 165 points out of the lead after three races and still in eighth place after four races. Then he went 2nd-1st-2nd-2nd-2nd to give himself a 63-point cushion heading to Homestead.
* In 2004, the first (and best) Chase, Johnson fell into a 247-point hole after four races, then went win-win-win-6th-win-2nd to pull himself to a final finish of second, eight stinkin' points behind Kurt Busch. You know that eats at him and Chad Knaus still.
* Johnson's streak is coming later in the season than the seven previous four-in-a-rows. (Jayski has them here.) Elliott (1992) and Earnhardt (1987) did theirs early in the season. Gordon (1993) and Martin (1993) did theirs toward the middle of the season. Yarborough's (1976) and Gant's came later in the year. (Yarborough won the title pretty easily; Gant finished fourth.) The one streak that's comparable is Waltrip's in 1981 - he was two points up on Bobby Allison with six races to go, then went win-win-win-win-2nd-sixth to put the title out of race.
Johnson has 33 career wins, fourth among active drivers (if you use a generous definition of "active" and include part-timers Mark Martin and Bill Elliott), and he'll pick up his second season title in five days. Maybe we should include him in the-greatest-ever? debate. For now, I'll put him atop the Best Clutch Drivers list.
Comments (1)
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Now John, you know you left yourself open with me when you asked for the best clutch driver of all time. The best clutch driver I ever saw over the last 40 years was Richie Evans. He would just show up at the track and dominate by simply backing it off the truck.
If you want to talk about these glorified Hobby Stock drivers I would have to say Big E and Jeff Gordon based on the level of competition improving over the course of time.
By the way if the topic is the single clutch performance it is Alan Kulwicki finishing just where he needed to and leading just enough laps to win the title at Atlanta back in '92 (I think).
Posted on November 13, 2007 8:26 PM