By Jim Utter, McClatchy Newspapers –
INDIANAPOLIS — Is NASCAR ready for Jimmie Johnson to win a sixth Sprint Cup Series championship?
How about a record-tying seventh, or even a record-breaking eighth?
Johnson certainly took another big step in that direction .
Three times previously Johnson had won at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and each time gone on to win the championship in that season.
Sunday, Johnson added a fourth victory in the Curtiss Shaver 400, tying Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon with the most NASCAR wins at the iconic track.
Will another championship be far behind?
“I feel that from a performance standpoint, we’re as strong as we’ve ever been. We’ve had issues late in a race that’s cost us track position for a variety of reasons, and that’s the part that we need to make sure is buttoned up before the Chase starts,” said Johnson, who earned his 58th Cup win.
“But from a performance standpoint, these are amazing race cars. We’ve made a lot of progress through the off-season and then getting started this year.
“I feel really good about the Chase. I’m ready for it to start.”
The win is Johnson’s third this season, tying him with Tony Stewart and Brad Keselowski for the most in the series.
He also joined an exclusive club at Indy.
Johnson is just the sixth driver to have won at Indianapolis Motor Speedway four or more times. He joins Gordon (four), Al Unser (four), A.J. Foyt (four), Rick Mears (four) and Michael Schumacher (five).
“This fourth (win), I’m able to join racing legends, my heroes, people I’ve looked up to my entire life,” Johnson said.
“To join them is a huge, huge honor. I know how much it means to Rick (Hendrick), and I’m thankful for all of his support and everybody at Hendrick Motorsports, and thankful to ( crew chief Chad Knaus) and my guys.”
While nobody conceded victory to Johnson, even his closest competitors said it was clear his No. 48 Chevrolet was the class of the field.
“It if wasn’t for the No. 48, we were probably in our own zip code compared to the rest of the field, but Jimmie Johnson was in his own country,” said Kyle Busch, who finished a distant second.
“We just couldn’t keep up with him. That was the best we had and it seemed like that was the best anybody had.”
The field was bunched one final time on Lap 133 by a caution for a three-car wreck involving Joey Logano, Matt Kenseth and Bobby Labonte.
Most of the lead-lap cars did not pit, so Johnson restarted the race on Lap 141 in the lead followed by Greg Biffle, Busch, Denny Hamlin and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
On the restart, it seemed if Johnson was shot from a cannon. He immediately put several car-lengths on Biffle and was never challenged in the final 20 laps.
“It really didn’t matter if you were in front of (Johnson) or not, he was going to pass you in about four or five laps anyway,” said Biffle, who finished third.
“He ran me down in two laps from 25 car-lengths back (at one point). I don’t know about Kyle. He was a little better, but it still looked like Jimmie was pretty fast.”
Earnhardt finished fourth and took over the series points lead and Gordon ended up fifth. Earnhardt leads Kenseth by 14 points with six races remaining until the Chase field is set. The last time Earnhardt led the points was Sept. 19, 2004, following the race at New Hampshire
Hendrick said he certainly takes stock in the amount of success his organization has enjoyed since NASCAR began competing at Indy, but he still prefers to look at the big picture.
“You know, you want to win these special events, but to win a championship you’ve got to be good everywhere,” he said.
“Every track is important — we do run well here, and we’ve been able to win eight of these things. But when we come back next year, it’s going to be a brand new ballgame.”
