Vengeful Johnson can sleep comfortably

AVONDALE, Ariz. – His look is clean-cut. His outward personality is polite. Jimmie Johnson wears a Lowe’s patch on his fire suit sleeve, not his heart.

And so it has become easy to miss what’s true about Jimmie Johnson – how his legendary combination of competitiveness and talent has driven him to the brink of a historic fourth consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup title.

After a dominating first-place finish here on Sunday at the Checker O’Reilly Auto Parts 500, he carries a 108-point lead into next weekend’s finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. He needs to finish just 25th or better to make history.

You can all but start the party on South Beach because Johnson is so focused now it’ll take an act of a vengeful God to stop the 48 car.

This is the Johnson that you have to work to see, the one you have to listen closely to understand. Forget what you think. Forget what you’re inclined to believe. This is the most competitive SOB in the sport, a ferocious, single-minded assassin when it comes to winning Cup titles.

Don’t let that boyish smile fool you.

Johnson was about ready to kill himself last week, tossing and turning at night as he replayed what for him was an unpardonable sin.

In qualifying for last week’s race at Texas Motor Speedway, he, for just a few seconds, took his foot off the pedal. Rather than going for the kill, he let up and decided to qualify safely in the pack. He wound up starting 12th.

Just three laps in, he got caught up in a wreck – the kind of thing that happens in stock car racing – and suddenly the massive advantage he’d built toward winning the Cup was on the brink. Only a makeshift, rebuilt car saved him from losing more of his lead.

To most, wrecks happen. To Johnson, this was his doing and all his doing.

How, he kept wondering, could he have allowed himself to let up? How could he have played it safe? How could he have let a season full of work – all the early morning weight training sessions, all the late-night studying, all the adjustments and endless hours by Chad Knaus and his crew – be placed at risk?

“My 12th place qualifying effort at Texas put me in harm’s way,” he said.

Jimmie had blown it and he wasn’t going to let it pass without whip-dogging himself. This is his entire thing, he works harder, smarter and longer than the rest. When he can choke you out, he does it, albeit with a kind look on his face.

The fans may want to call him robo champ. They may rail against his easy nature. They may claim he’s just a product of good fortune – the best technology, the best crew chief, the best championship system for his talents.

Whatever. It’s a lazy, loser’s lament, a way of ignoring what’s happening in front of everyone.

Jimmie Johnson didn’t shrug off anything that happened in Texas. He didn’t excuse his error by noting that it was the first poor performance in 30-plus Chase for the Cup performances – an unmatched stretch of superiority.

“I didn’t qualify better,” he said. “That was on my shoulders.”

Even those who know Johnson longest and best were taken aback by his focus last week. Team owner Rick Hendrick thought his driver needed to rebound as much for his state of mind as his spot in the standings.

After all, Johnson still led the Chase by 81 points. He was just acting like he’d kicked it all away.

What transpired here in the desert Sunday, first in qualifying Friday and then in a thorough beatdown Sunday, was the stuff of legend.

Starting third, Johnson refused to drop back despite a loose race car. “The safest place is up front, top two or three,” he said. He wasn’t going to get caught up in anything this week.

At the first pit, Knaus made the adjustment and “the car took off.” Johnson took the lead and spent the next two-plus hours making a mockery of this thing. It wasn’t so much a race as a chase, Johnson just humiliating the competition.

He led 238 of the 312 laps, earning 10 bonus points to go along with the win. “We did what we could today,” he said, which is essentially his goal of every day.

Yet that doesn’t begin to describe how much better he was than everyone else. On four different occasions he built leads of three seconds or more on the track. For the most part the only time the gap closed was during restarts.

Then he’d blast off the line and lead by a full second within three or four loops of the mile track. There were extended periods, 20, 30 laps on end when he led by five seconds or more, essentially a quarter of the track. On Lap 242 he held a 7.137 advantage over second-place Kurt Busch.

On Lap 305, there were just three other cars within nine seconds of him. He all but coasted home, making sure he wouldn’t run out of fuel. No one else had a prayer. No one else stood a chance.

This was the revenge of Jimmie Johnson. All over the track the discussion was that Johnson had made a statement, an intimidation tactic that the other drivers shouldn’t even bother trying to stop him. That, especially, means Mark Martin, who is second in the Cup standings.

It wasn’t though. Johnson didn’t care much what anyone else thought of his performance today. It was all about what he thought of himself.

“I think he needed this for his own good,” Hendrick said.

“We looked each other in the eye, knew what we had to do and we did it,” Johnson said, his suit soaked with champagne and Gatorade.

Some will want to dismiss what Johnson is about to accomplish. Others will want to bemoan that it’s boring for the sport – and, indeed, this was one dull race.

You can’t fault a guy though for being this mentally tough, this driven by winning and this committed to giving every thing he has to NASCAR. Those are the qualities most fans want in a driver.

No prisoners. No apologies.

“When you’re one of the best around and you leave no stone unturned, 24/7 – that kind of competitiveness is hard to beat when you have the talent to go with it,” Hendrick said.

There’s no denying Johnson’s talent. If you can get past the looks, there should be no denying his drive to win. And next Sunday in Florida, there isn’t going to be any denying the history he is going to make.