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Jimmie Johnson celebrates winning the Checker O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 on Sunday, his seventh victory of 2009. Overall, he’s won 18 Chase races. (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)

- Jimmie Johnson and Mark Martin have competed in 265 races together. Martin has scored 108 more points (the current margin separating the two) than Johnson in nine of them. The most recent, of course, was at Texas on Nov. 8.

- Career victory No. 47 puts Jimmie Johnson one ahead of Buck Baker and one behind Herb Thomas. He’s in 13th place all-time.

- All Kyle Busch has to do to wrap up the title is start the Nationwide Series finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Ron Hornaday Jr. has already wrapped up his record fourth championship in the Camping World Truck Series.

- Johnson won for the fourth time at Phoenix International Raceway. No one else has won at the Desert Mile more than twice.

- While Jeff Burton was closing in a bit on Johnson late in the Checker O’Reilly 500, he was realistic afterwards. "We were catching him, but Johnson has a way of finding a little extra when he needs it. I’m sure the final three or four laps that he knew the margin he had," he said.

- This is the third time Johnson has won four or more races in the Chase. His career total of Chase victories is 18.

- Ford drivers have won the past five Homestead races. Greg Biffle won three in a row (2004-06), followed by Matt Kenseth in 2007 and Carl Edwards last year. Coincidentally, it’s billed as Ford Championship Weekend.

- Homestead-Miami Speedway is the only Sprint Cup track where Jeff Gordon has never won.

- Kurt Busch led the first 52 laps at Phoenix. Johnson then led 238 of the remaining 260.

- The Cup season finale is one of three races held in the State of Florida. NASCAR history is dotted with the names of Sunshine State natives like Fireball Roberts, Lee Roy Yarbrough, Marshall Teague, Joe Nemechek and David Reutimann.

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Mark Martin was able to keep pace with Jimmie Johnson for most of the day, finishing fourth in the Checker O’Reilly Auto Parts 500. Martin trails Johnson by 108 points heading into the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)

AVONDALE, Ariz. - The guy who raced Jimmie Johnson hardest on Sunday was Joey Logano.

It was the rookie Logano who, as the end of the Checker O’Reilly 500 neared, held Johnson up for a handful of laps, thus briefly enabling Logano’s teammate, Denny Hamlin, to catch Johnson’s Chevrolet.

But, alas, eventually Johnson slipped under Logano, and away he went, vanquishing Hamlin’s Toyota and winning for the seventh time this season and fourth time in his career at Phoenix International Raceway.

"I was trying to be smooth," said Johnson, "and I’m not sure whether the ‘20′ car was trying to stay just one lap down or help his teammate, but the ‘20′ car wasn’t being very friendly."

By failing to stem the Johnson tide, Logano fell two laps down while Johnson was crashing through yet another barrier on his way to a fourth straight Sprint Cup championship. Not too long afterwards, Jeff Burton slipped past Hamlin to take second place.

After the first 50 of the 312 laps, Johnson’s superiority was crystal clear.

"The first run the car was real loose, but after that, it was good all day," he said.

Burton closed in on Johnson near the end, but the runner-up was a realist when asked the inevitable "could you catch him?"

"I don’t know," said Burton. "We were catching him, but Johnson has a way of finding a little extra when he needs it. I’m sure the final three or four laps that he knew the margin he had."

As he crossed the line, Johnson’s edge was a comfortable 1.033 seconds.

A week after Johnson became an unwitting victim of a third-lap crash at Texas Motor Speedway, he moved quickly to the lead, taking it for the first time by passing Kurt Busch on the 53rd lap. Busch then led the 54th before surrendering to Johnson, basically, for good. From lap 53 on, Johnson led 238 of the remaining 260.

Johnson, who normally errs on the side of the cautious, allowed himself a bit of candor, admitting "we dominated this race" (as if there were some doubt).

"We don’t need to get too excited about things, but 100-something (with only one race remaining, Johnson’s point lead is 108) is better than 73 (the margin when the race began)," he said.

The wide-eyed amazement on the part of Johnson, crew chief Chad Knaus and owner Rick Hendrick is achingly familiar to everyone chasing them for the past four years, even teammate Jeff Gordon, who once won four championships himself.

"It’s no surprise," he said. "We’ve seen them do it before. That’s why they’re three-time champs, soon to be four."

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Joey Logano broke a 61-year record and became the youngest driver in NASCAR history to win a Sprint Cup race last weekend, emerging victorious from a rain-shortened race at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon to capture the first Cup win of his career. At 19, Logano captured his first Cup Series title at the Lenox Industrial Tools 301, coming in ahead of Jeff Gordon, Kurt Busch, David Reutimann and Tony Stewart, respectively, before the rain took over and caused officials to call the race after 279 laps.

Logano started off to a slow start at Loudon, even spinning into a wall on Turn 4 of Lap 184 after he was clipped by Ryan Newman. Luck was on Logano’s side throughout the race, however, and he regained a lap on the next caution flag of the race (on Lap 191). By lap 250, it appeared as if rain was imminent, and the Sprint Cup drivers then played the game of waiting on a rainout, each trying to conserve gas and hold out on refueling. Ryan Newman, the leader of the pack at one point, bowed out of the running for first when he ran out of gas on Lap 264, leaving Joey Logano in the No. 1 position as the drivers kept going in circles while waiting for the call.

The caution for rain came out four laps after Newman’s exit, crowning Joey Logano the victor of the Lenox Industrial Tools 301. 101,000 fans with NASCAR tickets watched Logano take his very first Sprint Cup win, also knocking off Kyle Busch’s previous record as youngest Cup Series winner of a race, which was set when Busch (now 24) was 20 years old. Setting a NASCAR record after his 20th Sprint Cup start, Logano acknowledged the importance of the day’s events, saying, "To get the win today, this is cool. This is where I watched my first [Sprint] Cup race, where I ran my first Cup race and where I won my first [Cup] race. I couldn’t pick a better place."

Joey Logano, the No. 20 driver of the Home Depot car for Joe Gibbs Racing and the kid known as "Sliced Bread," officially became the toast after his victory over the weekend in Loudon, and yes, the young racing prodigy has always been this good. Logano grew up in Middletown, Connecticut and began racing at age six as a quarter midget driver, garnering fame quickly as his teen years ensued. By age 15, Logano was called "the real deal" by Sprint Cup hero Mark Martin, and at 18 he jumped aboard the prestigious NASCAR circuit, becoming the youngest driver in Nationwide history to win a race at the Meijer 300 in 2008, after his third start in the NASCAR series.

In August of 2008, Logano joined the Sprint Cup Series as the No. 20 Home Depot driver after Tony Stewart left Joe Gibbs Racing, becoming a top finisher in series races ever since. Now that he’s already winning Cup titles, it’s only a matter of time until Joey Logano becomes the top fixture of the Sprint Cup Series. To watch him in action, get racing tickets online and cheer for this 19-year-old phenom!

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Article Source: ArticleSpan

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