We have heard that adage all week ever since Jimmie Johnson claimed his first career NASCAR Nextel Cup championship, after four seasons of near misses. Johnson finished in the top five in the NASCAR championship standings in all of his first four seasons, but in 2006, he will be the man that everyone will honor in New York in December.
Johnson headed into the Ford 400 at Homestead with a snug 63-points edge over second place Matt Kenseth, and had to finish 12th or better to close the deal, and that is if Kenseth were to win the race. Well, Kenseth didn’t win, Roush Racing teammate Greg Biffle did, and Johnson’s ninth place finish capped off a remarkable season for the El Cajon, California native.
Johnson would finish the season as the Nextel Cup champion by 56 points over Kenseth.
"It's going to take a little bit of time for this to soak in, just to think what this team has accomplished and the year we've had," Johnson said while celebrating his first Nextel Cup championship. "Being a champion, it's the only thing I ever wanted to be."
The 2006 season started off rather rock-strewn for Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus, as a rules violation at Daytona forced Knaus to be suspended by NASCAR for the season’s first four races. Despite the censure and hullabaloo, Johnson won the Daytona 500 with interim crew chief Darian Grubb, and backed that up with a win at Las Vegas just two weeks later.
When Knaus returned at Bristol in March, the 48 team never decelerated, except for a minor late summer slide that dropped them to second in the Nextel Cup standings.
Johnson accomplished what could be considered the ‘NASCAR triple crown’ as he won the Daytona 500, Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis, and the NASCAR Nextel Cup championship.
Jimmie Johnson was referred to Rick Hendrick by Jeff Gordon, whom he would seek career advice from in 2001. In 2002, Johnson would finish runner-up in the rookie standings to Ryan Newman, despite winning three races and four poles.
The championship was Hendrick Motorsports sixth overall, tying them with Richard Childress Racing for the most for active car owners. Jeff Gordon won titles in 1995, 1997, 1998, and 2001, and Terry Labonte won the championship in 1996.
The championship is just one more achievement for Johnson to add to his already impressive resume of 23 career wins, 66 top fives, and 110 top tens.
