Jimmie Johnson won his sixth NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship on Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway. He is now just one shy of tying the record for most NASCAR championship of seven which is held by Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt.
Johnson entered Sunday’s race with a 28 point lead over Matt Kenseth. Kevin Harvick, who won last week at Phoenix, was the only other driver with a shot at the title and was 34 points behind Johnson. Johnson just needed to finish 23rd or better to win the title, while Kenseth and Harvick needed Johnson to have a problem to have a shot at the title.
Johnson and Kenseth made slight contact on a restart when traffic stacked up. Johnson lost 15 spots after the contact caused damage to his fender. But he came back to finish ninth. Kenseth, who was in his first year at Joe Gibbs Racing and won seven races, led a race-high 144 laps and finished second to teammate Denny Hamlin, according to the Associated Press.
"It was just unbelievable year for us. Obviously, we wanted to win the championship as good as we ran all year," Kenseth said. "If Jimmie would have got a flat or something, that would have been all right.Never seen anything like this in the sport and probably never will again. ... Maybe he'll retire."
Johnson, who won five straight titles from 2006 to 2010, plans to savor his sixth title.
"This is extremely sweet. I feel like those five years were a blur. And things happen so fast," Johnson said. "It's not that I didn't enjoy it or appreciate it or respect what happened. It just went by so fast it seems like. Now, I'm really going to slow things down here and enjoy it. This is so, so sweet,” Johnson said, notes the AP.
Johnson at the age of 38 is the youngest driver to reach six titles (83 days earlier than Petty), according to USA Today. He had an average finish of 5.1 during the Chase. His best Chase performance came in 2007 when he had a 5.0 average finish in the Chase. Johnson also won a Hall of Fame vote as NASCAR is adding the champion to its panel.
Johnson’s team is possibly the greatest dynasty in the history of NASCAR. Johnson is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, drive in NASCAR history. Now teams will enjoy the short offseason and try to figure out how to beat "Six Time" when the 2014 season begins in Daytona in February.