There is no other explanation! It's a NASCAR fact! Jimmie Johnson, the reigning NASCAR Sprint Cup champion is running out of luck. In his last six races, he experienced no victories, just one top-five finish, an average finish of 22.0 and two DNFS.
With a record like that, surely this is not the way to defend his title, ut has he been already dethroned? Three times in the last six races, he’s finished outside the top 30. There is absolutely, positively no way he’s going to win the championship this year, is there? Right?
Last year, in the six races heading into the Chase for the Sprint Cup, Johnson had a best finish of eighth, his only top 10 finish in that stretch. His average finish in those six races was 18.88. And that was at a point in the season when drivers are supposed to be peaking.
All Johnson did last year was go out and win the Chase by the largest margin ever. Johnson beat his Hendrick Motorsports teammates Mark Martin by 141 points and Jeff Gordon by 179 points. Kurt Busch was 206 points back in fourth, and no one else was within even 300 points of Johnson.
At this same time in 2008, Johnson endured a six-race cold snap that saw him finish 30th or worse twice, and have an average finish of 18.00.
Three years ago, Johnson finished 42nd in the first Pocono race and went the next seven races with an average finish of 24.14, including three finishes of 37th or worse.
And in his first title season of 2006, Johnson had an average finish of 18.83 starting five races before the Chase and lasting through the first Chase race at Loudon, N.H.
So the question is, does this latest bad performance represent the same dry spell Johnson, crew chief Chad Knaus and the rest of the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports squad go through every year, or after five years of pushing things to the limit, has racing luck, team fatigue and/or the competition finally caught up with them?
It’s probably too early to know for sure, even for Johnson who commented that he’s going to try and maintain a consistent pace after crashing out of Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
"We just need to go out and focus on top 10s and top fives. I think I was pushing it a little too hard in the 600 to try and stay on the lead lap – first racing hard and damaging the car and then trying to stay on the lead lap. So we just need to get back to collecting points and come in with a clear mind and a good attitude for the Pocono race and log 500 miles and get a good finish out of it."
With the recent impressive hot streaks that Denny Hamlin and the Busch brothers have been on, Johnson and his minions likely are shooting something rather more substantial than just a good finish.
And time will tell how soon the No. 48 team gets back on track, or whether a few hard wall hit this year have finally dislodged Johnson’s golden horseshoe. Stay tuned, there’s a lot more to this story to be told in the days and weeks to come.
