Johnson rebounds to prove point, Team 48 just best in business

Remember Jimmie Johnson's little stumble last week at Texas Motor Speedway?

Forget about it.

Johnson has and he did it in a big way Sunday with a dominating performance at Phoenix International Raceway.

Jimmie Johnson, who has four wins in the last five races in Phoenix, makes a strong statement to the rest of the field. (AP)

His victory was nothing short of a championship clinching effort and a 25th-place finish or better next week at the season finale in Homestead will put Johnson in the record books with a fourth consecutive title.

Although his 38th-place finish last week in Texas gave a small sliver of hope to Mark Martin, who closed the gap to a still hefty 73 points coming into the weekend's second-to-last race of the season, Johnson made a pretty strong statement on Sunday.

He's the best there is in NASCAR.

"I guess in the end it could be looked at like that," Johnson said. "I could say from living it, it wasn't necessarily a statement, it was, 'Hey, guys, you know, we need to step up today and get it done.'

"[Crew chief] Chad [Knaus] and I, the conversations we've had, the team meeting, everything was, we need to show what we're made of, we need to get this done today. I guess in the end it could have been a statement that we're sending."

Despite the Texas misstep, Johnson's performance Sunday at Phoenix was more the norm for the soon-to-be four-time Sprint Cup Series champion who has made it look easy at times since winning his first title in 2006.

But Johnson disagrees with that assessment and says nothing in this sport is a gift and that the 48 team has struggled for every lap led, race won and championship gained.

"Man, it's not easy to win races," Johnson said after his 47th career Sprint Cup triumph. "It's not easy to score points. Think of the first half of the Chase, how I was running, Mark was running. You know, you couldn't give up an inch. In your bad races, you needed to be in the top five, whatever it was. In that respect, grinding it out, not from a negative point that it's been all that tough, things like that, it's just that you can't give an inch. You've got to fight for every single inch around this track, every lap, to win a Chase, to be competitive in the championship."

Crew chief Knaus concurs with Johnson and dismisses the view that the Hendrick team simply shows up at the racetrack each week and oozes excellence.

Knaus believes that superiority comes from nothing less than hard work and preparation.

"I don't think people really understand how difficult it is to be fine in this industry," Knaus said. "It's really hard. There's a lot of guys out there trying to be fine. To do what it is that we're trying to accomplish, man, it's a lot of hard work. Everybody's got to dig. You can't sit back and you can't rest and you can't think what ifs, what happens now. You've got to just go in there and attack. That's kind of the mentality we have. We prepare the cars to the best of our ability, we pump up Jimmie, the pit crew."

Team owner Rick Hendrick, who stands on the brink of celebrating a ninth career title in NASCAR's top division, has worked with his share of top notch driver and crew chief combinations. But the current duo of Johnson and Knaus is close to being unmatched even in Hendrick's lofty experience.

And even with four crowns in a row nearly in the bag, Hendrick sees the potential for even more success.

"I don't know how good these two guys can get," Hendrick said. "I really don't. But they're two of the best I've ever worked with and the best I've ever seen, at a time when this sport is probably more competitive than it has been at any time that I've been racing. But these two guys have the most awesome amount of talent I've ever been around. And they also have the most dedication of anybody I've ever been around."

If there is one thing perhaps still missing from the Johnson experience is acceptance from the NASCAR fan base. There are thousands of Johnson fans out there to be sure but even he acknowledges his success might be the reason more haven't jumped on the 48 bandwagon.

"I don't expect the fan appeal, some of this perception stuff to come easy," Johnson said. "I've always had to earn it. Here I am another year grinding it out and trying to earn it. I'm fine with it. I'm good with it. In the last year I've seen my fan base, the perception change so, so much. If we are able to win a fourth, I think it would help it even more."

Johnson understands other greats in the sport have had to endure a similar fan reaction and believes he's in pretty god company.

"I also think, you know, when I was a kid growing up, Earnhardt was winning a lot of races and championships, but nobody liked him," he said.

"When I first started driving for Hendrick, Jeff won his fourth championship, won a lot of races, nobody really liked him. So I'm not the only one going through this. It's happened in our sport to other drivers. I wasn't around to see what happened, to see the days of Richard Petty, to see what that was like. Earnhardt and Gordon have gone through the same stuff I've gone through."

From the looks of things Johnson and Knaus will have to go through this stuff for the foreseeable future. And even Hendrick believes that's not very good news for the rest of the garage area. "I said this earlier, I'm just glad I don't have to race against 'em," Hendrick said.