Johnson is Champ, exactly as planned.
By: Drew Hierwarter
Well, the 2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup season is over and Jimmy Johnson is, once again, the champion. The Rick Hendrick owned number 48 team won this year’s title in a calculated and precise way, just like they did last year. During the 2006 championship banquet last December in New York City crew chief Chad Knaus told his guys, “Celebrate tonight and have a good time. The 2007 season begins tomorrow.” And from the very beginning after that December night, Knaus had a plan and he spent all of 2007 working that plan to perfection. While other teams were racing as hard as they could, Johnson and Knaus used the spring and summer months to prepare their cars and crews for the Chase. They didn’t worry about the results of individual races as they kept their eyes on the overall picture. They gave crew members time off during the week, they tried to relax, they played golf together. In other words they did whatever they could to minimize the stress on the team. When the Chase began at Loudon everybody was relatively fresh and completely focused on the last ten races. The plan worked to perfection and the 48 team peaked at exactly the right time. No doubt in 2008, you’ll see some other teams try this same approach.
Dale Earnhardt, Jr. will also be trying to relax during this brief off-season and re-focus his efforts to a new team and a bright new promise. He had the kind of year any driver would like to forget. And the final race at Homestead wasn’t any better. After starting at the back because they had to change a transmission after qualifying, he had worked his way to ninth in the first fifty laps. Then a series of mishaps; a spin after being bumped on pit road, a pit entry violation penalty, another spin after being bumped on a restart, a series of pit stops to repair the damage from all this, and Junior found himself mired in the 30s, six laps down to the leaders. It was a dismal way to end a dismal year. And now he leaves the only company he has ever driven for, the company his late father founded, to drive for the current powerhouse team in the sport. A team that will give him arguably the best cars on the track and afford him the best chance he’s had in years to not only win races, but to seriously compete for a championship. He has to be relieved.
Next year the much debated “Car of Tomorrow” will be the standard NASCAR race car. The current car that has been raced in the same basic configuration for the last twenty years or so is now obsolete. Some of the larger teams have as many as 50 of these cars per driver in their stables and the question now is what do you do with them all? They will still be legal for ARCA competition and a lot of those teams have already bought several. They will also be legal for Busch East and the NASCAR West series, where they get a weight break because of the 110” wheelbase. Petty Enterprises has already announced that they will be donating their cars to various technical and engineering schools. But this may be the best time for some fan to get the ultimate NASCAR souvenir. You will soon be able to get ex-Nextel Cup cars on popular internet auction sites for pennies on the dollar. What you do with it after that is entirely up to you!
Only 90 days until the Daytona 500!