Jimmie Johnson’s Extra Motivation
fanhouse.com
by Holly Cain
Filed under: Jimmie Johnson, Chase for the Sprint Cup
Turns out everyone was a little ahead of themselves.
The wild-card race wasn’t last week at Talladega, Ala., but Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway. At least as far as NASCAR championship points leader Jimmie Johnson is concerned.
All week the three-time defending Sprint Cup Series champ refused to buy into everyone else’s hype that he had a historic fourth consecutive title wrapped up. He cautioned, chastised and — as it turned out, correctly predicted — that the 184-point lead over the field he took into Sunday’s race wasn’t enough to seal the deal.
After being collected in a crash only three laps into the 334-lap Dickies 500, Johnson’s nearly one-race points advantage has shrunk to only 73 points over Hendrick Motorsports teammate Mark Martin with two races remaining.
Jimmie Johnson’s Extra Motivation originally appeared on Motorsports FanHouse on Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:45:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.