But Jimmie Johnson will run the same car in four of the last eight races this season. He likes the car that much and for some reason it’s faster than the rest of his Hendrick Motorsports fleet.
That’s why the team had it on the track Friday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where Johnson was 11th in practice with a lap of 175.194 mph.
Johnson has a 28-point lead on Matt Kenseth and a 34-point lead on Kevin Harvick heading into the season finale Sunday at Homestead. Harvick was 16th in practice Friday at 174.944 mph and Harvick was 19th at 174.531 mph. Martin Truex Jr. led practice with a lap of 176.661 mph.
All Johnson needs to do is finish 23rd to win the championship. And he has a trusted car, one that he used to lead 243 laps in a win at Dover, 130 laps at Charlotte (fourth) and 255 laps in a win two weeks ago at Texas.
Hendrick Motorsports saved the car after it was strong for 54 laps as a backup car at Michigan before the engine failed. The only time it had been raced before that was at Dover in June, where Johnson had led 143 laps before a late restart penalty.
“I ran (it) at Dover earlier in the year and the car performed very well,” Johnson said. “Michigan in August, I crashed in practice in our primary car and this car was the backup. Right away there was just something that felt really good about it.
“We don't know why. We look at all the numbers from aero, all the things that go with it, all the tools we have to measure, and there's nothing that stands out. It just feels better. It's a more comfortable car for me to drive.”
MCNABB: JOHNSON NOT AN ATHLETE
Johnson is on the brink of winning his sixth Sprint Cup title, but apparently there’s one famous athlete who’s not ready to call Johnson an athlete for what he does on a racetrack.
Former NFL quarterback Donovan McNabb, on Fox Sports 1's “Fox Sports Live” show, matter-of-factly said Friday that he doesn’t consider racecar drivers athletes.
McNabb was taking part in a panel discussion of where Johnson ranks among the top athletes (McNabb had him third, behind Tiger Woods and Kobe Bryant) when he said:
“Do I think he’s an athlete? Absolutely not.”
The response seemed to startle host Charissa Thompson, who pressed McNabb on the issue.
“He’s not an athlete,” McNabb said. “He sits in a car and he drives, so that doesn’t make you athletic. I give credit to what he’s been able to do.”
McNabb probably doesn’t know much about Johnson’s training regimen, which has him able to run 20 miles and compete in triathlons, as described in this Sporting News story.
“What athletically is he doing? … I didn’t say (NASCAR isn't) a sport, I said he’s not athletic,” McNabb said.
Johnson will probably dismiss McNabb as ignorant. But if he did want to get in a debate, here's something to help his research: It was just three years ago that McNabb was benched for a 2-minute drill. Why? Well, his coach said he was not in shape.
NASCAR STILL WATCHING
With the season finale for its three major series set for this weekend, NASCAR President Mike Helton stands by NASCAR's decision to kick Martin Truex Jr. out of the Chase for the Sprint Cup and put Ryan Newman and Jeff Gordon in after the controversy at the start of the playoffs.
Helton said Friday at Homestead-Miami Speedway that he believes NASCAR’s penalties and new rules have had the desired effect of keeping teams from using team orders to manipulate the finish of a race.
“Certainly it's an issue that we have to continue to monitor, as well as the industry,” Helton said Friday.
“For some time the incident itself and our reaction to it and the industry's reaction to it, whether it's through the fans or sponsors or what have you, creates such a huge awareness around it that I think teams will actually for some time be more careful, which is the purpose of penalties anyway, to eliminate it from happening again.”
NASCAR hopes to avoid the type of debacle that occurred in the Sept. 7 race at Richmond International Raceway. Clint Bowyer spun late in the race — it appeared to be intentional — to set up the opportunity for Michael Waltrip Racing teammate Brian Vickers to come down pit road as the race was restarted. Those moves helped improve Truex's finishing position and get their MWR teammate into the Chase field. It also helped Penske Racing's Joey Logano get into the Chase while keeping Newman and Gordon out.
Two days later, NASCAR docked Bowyer, Vickers and Truex 50 pre-Chase points each, which knocked Truex out of the Chase and put Newman in. NASCAR also fined the team a record $300,000 and indefinitely suspended MWR general manager/spotter Ty Norris.
But that wasn't the end of the controversy or NASCAR penalties. After details emerged of a conversation between Penske Racing and Front Row Racing about compensation for giving up a spot on the track for Penske's Logano, NASCAR determined that no deal was ever made but added Gordon to the Chase because it determined that he was at an unfair disadvantage. It placed the Front Row and Penske teams on probation.
CRAFTON WINS TRUCKS TITLE
Matt Crafton waited a week to start his championship party.
It ended up being a subdued celebration.
Crafton won the NASCAR Truck Series title even before the green flag dropped Friday night at Homestead-Miami Speedway, but lost the owners' championship to Kyle Busch on a tiebreaker.
"It's kind of aggravating because we wanted the owners' championship as well, but it happens," Crafton said.
With a nearly insurmountable 46-point lead over Ty Dillon, all Crafton needed to do was start the 200-mile finale to secure his first series championship in 13 seasons.
So when his engine fired and he took the track, it became official.
In the end, Busch won the race — his fifth of the season while driving a partial schedule — and the owner's championship. The Sprint Cup regular's No. 51 car won the tiebreaker because it had more wins than Crafton this season.
FRANCHITTI'S IMPACT
Dario Franchitti is expected to make a full recovery from injuries suffered last month in a brutal IndyCar crash at Houston.
But the four-time IndyCar series champion and three-time Indianapolis 500 champion won’t race again. With reportedly three major concussions in the last 11 years, his doctors have advised him that he risks significant permanent injury if he drives in a racecar again.
That type of diagnosis is exactly what worries some NASCAR drivers about the implementation of baseline concussion testing beginning next year to help determine whether a driver should race after suffering a concussion. The ImPACT test that NASCAR will use can help determine the impact of a concussion as it measures verbal and visual memory, processing speed and reaction time.
Brad Keselowski, the 2012 Cup champion, was quite vocal last month when the policy was announced, saying, “Doctors don’t understand our sport. They never have. Doctors aren’t risk takers. We are. That’s what makes our sport what it is. When you get doctors involved, you water down our sport. … This is not the field for doctors. Let them play in their arena and I’ll play in mine.”
IndyCar has required drivers to have baseline tests for several years and its doctors have used them to make diagnoses.
“Let's just say I'm probably 180 degrees different than (how) the current NASCAR champion feels about having doctors around, their input,” said Franchitti team owner Chip Ganassi, who also owns two NASCAR Sprint Cup teams. “That statement comes from experiences that I've had personally. To break a bone is one thing, or to have a surgical procedure is another.
“But when it comes to your head, I think it's important that everybody understands that's probably the least known area of expertise by any doctor, and certainly there's a lot of expertise out there. They're just in the last four or five years understanding what injuries and implications of those injuries are.”
DILLON LIKES HIS COWBOY HAT
Most NASCAR drivers wear ball caps featuring their sponsor logos when they climb out of their racecars.
But 23-year-old Austin Dillon has to be different doesn’t he?
Dillon, the future Sprint Cup star and grandson of team owner Richard Childress, wears a cowboy hat.
“I like to wear them,” Dillon said Thursday at Homestead-Miami Speedway. “I grew up wearing them when I was little. We would go to Montana horseback riding. I was always a John Wayne fan, huge cowboy fan.
“I started wearing them heavily. I don't get paid to wear these hats.”
The Nationwide Series points leader gets his cowboy hats for free from Charlie 1 Horse, a connection he made at Texas Motor Speedway. He is one of three NASCAR drivers that typically wear cowboy hats, along with his brother, Ty, and Sprint Cup rookie Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
He does know, though, that some people make fun of him for wearing a cowboy hat, right? Is it really worth the ridicule over his fashion statement?
“Always controversy,” Dillon said about his world. “They're going to make fun of me if I had a zit on my nose or something like that. I can't control that.
“I'm comfortable whatever I do, in my own skin, surround myself with the people I want to be around.”
JOHNSON NAMED PERSON OF YEAR
As he puts the finishing touches on yet another remarkable season, Johnson has been named NASCAR Illustrated’s 2013 Person of the Year.
Johnson, who will be racing for his sixth Sprint Cup championship Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, has won six races this season and carries a 28-point lead into the season’s final race.
Perhaps more importantly, Johnson is being honored for helping others. The five-time champ’s Jimmie Johnson Foundation raised more than $5.6 million to help children, families and communities across the country.
Johnson and his wife, Chandra, also spent time this year in tornado-ravaged Oklahoma, helping families recover from the storms that wrecked much of the state.
“Jimmie Johnson was a paragon of performance both on and off the race track this year,” NASCAR Illustrated’s Kris Johnson wrote in its December issue honoring Johnson.
Contributors: Bob Pockrass, Sporting News staff
PHOTOS: Johnson's endurance training
