Only question remaining is, how far can Johnson go?

A crewman from the No. 48 team dove off the pit box, and was crowd-surfed to the ground by his teammates. Nick Lachey, the pop singer and childhood friend of Jimmie Johnson, flashed four fingers to cameramen who couldn't click away fast enough. Even Chad Knaus, the all-business crew chief of NASCAR's newly crowned four-time championship team, filmed the happenings with a hand-held video recorder, preserving the moment for posterity.

"I knew this was going to be a big deal," Knaus said, after the fireworks and the burnouts and the champagne-spraying at Homestead-Miami Speedway had finally come to an end. "I wanted to take something to remember it by. Because even going through all this stuff, it's a whirlwind, and you forget. I wanted to document it."

There will be no shortage of documentation, not after Sunday night, when Johnson did something that no driver in the six-decade history of NASCAR's premier series has been able to do. And yet, a record-breaking four consecutive championships—besting the three in a row Cale Yarborough attained from 1976-78—seems like a mere stepping stone.

Perhaps because it was never really in question, the history that Johnson and Knaus made here on the edge of the Everglades felt overshadowed by the history that may still be yet to come. The question isn't whether they'll continue to win titles. It's how many they'll ultimately end up with before time catches up to them.

Because right now, nothing else can. So what's next? Five in a row? Seven overall, equaling the holy grail of NASCAR records, currently held by two men so iconic they can be identified merely as the Intimidator and the King? Sunday night, as the flashbulbs popped and pieces of star-shaped confetti floated down to the temporary stage set up along the race track's frontstretch, all things seemed possible for an operation that's become the flagship of the powerful Hendrick Motorsports organization.

"It's tough to really understand because of the way the last four years have gone, and based on questions and discussions, we make it look easy. But it is so, so difficult to compete in this sport. And what we've done is truly amazing, and the fact that it's never been done before speaks to how truly difficult this task is to win four in a row," said Johnson, 34, and likely with another competitive decade before him if he wants it.

"I don't know if we'll win another championship. I have no idea what next year will bring, what the challenges will bring as the years go by. There are no guarantees for that. I feel in my heart we'll be competitive, but at some point in time, we won't be that team. We are going to do everything we can to make sure we are that team, but you just never know what the future holds. So yes, I would love to win seven, eight championships. But me saying that is like [Jeff] Gordon saying yeah, he wants to win seven. Of course we want to do that. Is it a realistic thing at this point at time, with the level of competition we have in the sport? I don't know. But we sure as hell are going to try."

The frightening thing for the rest of the field is just how effortless Johnson and his No. 48 team make all of this seem. It's not, of course—Knaus, for instance, will be back in the office Tuesday, overseeing cars for the 2010 Daytona, California, and Las Vegas races that are already in the pipeline. But let's face it; for Johnson and the No. 48 year, winning championships gets statistically easier with every passing year. But for a bobble by Sam Hornish two weeks ago at Texas, Johnson would have had this thing wrapped up before the circuit even reached South Florida. As it stands, he still won by his widest margin ever, a 141-point advantage on Mark Martin.

"I managed the pressure much better this year," Johnson said. "That's the most relaxed I've been in the race car. This week, the nights, all of that stuff has been very, very good. There was a lot of pressure, and I'm definitely relieved the pressure is off, and I feel so light all of the sudden. But I think I've done a very good job this year of understanding the Chase, understanding the pressure, understanding what I'm capable of, what this team is capable of, what to focus on. And I certainly hope now that I've got a good comfortable understanding, and so does the team, that we can operate in this environment and continue it the next few years."

There's a warning shot for you. Not that there weren't some tense moments—surely there were, particularly the crash at Texas that sliced 111 points off Johnson's lead and cast a runaway championship race suddenly into doubt. And there were a few hold-your-breath instants Sunday, like when Juan Montoya thought he was clear and came up the race track, forcing Johnson to back off. Or when Johnson saw Hornish next to him on a restart, and had bad flashbacks. Or when Clint Bowyer got a little too close through the corner, sending Johnson into a rare tantrum on the radio.

"I definitely was a little revved up [Sunday]," Johnson conceded.

But ultimately, the outcome was never in question. Martin never had the car to mount a serious challenge, and even if he had, Johnson never gave him the opportunity. And so Johnson cruised to another title, and his fellow competitors were left wondering what they needed to do to catch him. There were no simple answers.

"It takes time to get to where they're at," said former Hendrick driver Brian Vickers, now at Red Bull. "It took them a long time to get to where they're at. It's hard to just build what they have in one year. Not that it can't be done—you have to build that confidence, consistency, the knowledge base, and the notes and be able to go fast. A lot of it is just experience. A lot of it is ability and how they approach racing and the Chase, but some of it is just experience. They have been doing it for a long time with the same group of people and you can't just snap your fingers and get that."

But a lot of other teams have experience, too. And yet, only Johnson and Knaus seem immune to the cyclical peaks and valleys that have typically defined this sport.

"I don't know if it's something mechanically on the cars, a way of doing things there, or if it's a way of managing people," mused Carl Edwards, who won nine races last season, and seemed to emerge as Johnson's chief rival before going winless this year. "I don't know where exactly their advantage lies. It could be both of those places, but I'd say that that's the team you want to emulate and figure out what they're doing, but I don't know the answer. I don't know what they're doing, but whatever it is, it's good."

Competitors are left scratching their heads, lending a degree of credence to the idea that Johnson might be able to match—or even exceed—the mark set by seven-time champions Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty. Even Johnson, who was hesitant to discuss his place in NASCAR history before Sunday evening, will admit that his accomplishments of the past four years place him in some rarefied air.

"It's up there," Johnson said. "The fact that nobody has done this, I think it puts me near the top. I certainly look at the seven championships by both Earnhardt and Petty, their race wins, their being in the sport for an amount of years and all that they've done. Those two guys are kind of in a draw at the top. Hopefully my stats and win totals and championship totals can rival theirs. But it puts us up there, it really does. And the cool thing is, we're not done yet. We've got a lot of racing left ahead of us, so hopefully we can improve on that."

All indications are that they will. Yes, there are more races to be run, and more seasons to be completed, and at some point the competition has to close the gap. But right now, it's as wide and bright as Biscayne Bay, which in the daytime shimmers just like Johnson's newest silver trophy. Even so, they take nothing for granted. Knaus, ever the pragmatist, has more modest and immediate objectives.

"I think when you get on a wave like this and you get momentum behind you, you don't want to slow down," the crew chief said. "I think you get excited and you want to continue it on. It's easy to feed off that fire once it starts to develop. But the thing is, this sport is so, so difficult. It's a grueling, non-forgiving sport, it really is. If we went out there next week, let's say we raced again next week, and finished 20th—you know what? You better get to work. There are no concessions. Nobody is going to give you anything in this industry. … So are our sights set any further than qualifying for the Daytona 500 next year? They're not. That's our first goal."

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.