Is Jimmie Johnson's dominance good or bad for NASCAR?

Shortly after Saturday night's race Twitter (you can find me at twitter.com/dustinlong) was all aflutter in debate on whether Jimmie Johnson's dominance is good for the sport. Johnson completed a rare perfect weekend by being the fastest in each practice session, winning the pole and winning the race.

Johnson now leads second-place Mark Martin by 90 points in the season standings. Third-place Jeff Gordon is 135 points back. Thus, the top three are all Hendrick cars.

Back to the point of Johnson's dominance. Consider what his win Saturday means:

# Johnson has won 3 of the first 5 races in the Chase

# Johnson has won 6 of the last 13 Chase races, dating back to last season

# Johnson has won 10 of the last 20 Chase races, dating back to the 2007 season

# And think about this: Jeff Gordon has finished second, second and fourth in the last three races and has LOST 57 points to Johnson during that stretch (Johnson has gone ninth, first, first in those races).

Johnson is halfway to a record-breaking fourth consecutive series championship. Some would say that such dominance is bad for the sport. Others would counter then what about Richard Petty or Dale Earnhardt winning all those titles? What makes those celebrated and Johnson's run not revered?

Johnson was asked if he feels as if he's ruining the sport with his run.

"I don't understand why people would have a problem with it,'' he said afterhis 46th career win, which tied him with Buck Baker for 13th on the all-time wins list. "Everybody tunes in to watch Tiger (Woods) win. Everybody tunes in to watch (Roger) Federer do his thing on certain (tennis) courts. I'm just doing my thing. I think there's a lot of fans out there that are excited to see what this 48 car is doing, and a lot of people are happy and rooting for us to win a fourth.''

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Here's a look at the points:

1. Jimmie Johnson .....5,923 points

2. Mark Martin ...............90 points behind leader

3. Jeff Gordon .............135 points behind leader

4. Tony Stewart ...........155 points behind leader

5. Kurt Busch ..............177 points behind leader

6. Juan Pablo Montoya .195 points behind leader

7. Greg Biffle ................ 268 points behind leader

8. Ryan Newman ........ 288 points behind leader

9. Kasey Kahne ...........331 points behind leader

10. Carl Edwards ....... 341 points behind leader

11. Denny Hamlin ...... 372 points behind leader

12. Brian Vickers ........ 485 points behind leader

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Both Mark Martin and Juan Pablo Montoya saw their races change dramatically on the restart on lap 125. Jeff Gordon brought the field to the green a bit slow and some cars back in the field ran into each other trying to get a jump on the start. Montoya got into the back of Clint Bowyer, while Martin ran into the back of Montoya. Montoya suffered right front damage and right rear quaterpanel damage. HIs car went backward. He lost a lap and then later spun. Montoya ended up finishing 35th. Martin suffered a hole in the front of his car from the contact and struggled back in traffic and was never a factor after that. He finished 17th _ his worst finish since Michigan in August. Martin had finished seventh or better in each of the last seven races before Saturday.

Said Montoya of the incident: "They all accelerated and they call check up. Every time (Jeff Gordon) restarted, it was the same thing. We had one of our fastest cars. Not much we can do. We worked as hard as we could and we did all we thought was possible today and the best we could do was 35th.''

Said Martin: "We had a lot of issues tonight and we could have given up and none of (his crew) did. I got really tight at the end. I was afraid that was going to happen because that is what happened all n ight long.''

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A lot of Chase drivers struggled. Tony Stewart finished 13th. Here's what he said of his night: "We were loose at the beginning of a run, then we got to where after about 20 laps, we would start getting tight. Just one of those nights where we couldn't really hit the balance.''

Kasey Kahne, at times, had one of the strongest cars and went on to finish third. Despite the strong performance, one thing that stood out about that car was how it didn't fire off on restarts like Johnson and Gordon. Said crew chief Kenny Francis about the restarts: "We're not all that great on restarts for some reason. We ain't got that figured out yet, but we'll keep working on it and see if we can get it figured out.''

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Something to think about. The last time the series was at Charlotte was the Coca-Cola 600. That was the last race for Dale Earnhardt Jr. and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. The car was awful that day as Earnhardt finished 40th in the rain-shortened  race. For as bad as the car was, Earnhardt and Eury didn't speak much on the radio. You just knew they were done _ and the two were split up before the series headed to Dover the following week. Now fast forward to Saturday. Different crew chief but Earnhardt's car again was awful. He could barely get out of the top 30 -- so it was a bit better than in May. While there are a lot of factors, Earnhardt hasn't had the best of performances at this track.

Still, before the race car owner Rick Hendrick expressed confidence in his driver and team. As for if Lance McGrew will be the crew chief next year -- remember McGrew's title has always been interim crew chief -- Hendrick wouldn't say, although he suggested he could be inclined to keep them together because he's seeing progress. Yes, there have been times Earnhardt has run well. This weekend, though, was a big step backward. The car was never competitive all weekend.

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QUICK HITS

# Give credit to David Reutimann for finishing 15th. Word was he was awfully sick before the race (and had Dave Blaney standing by) but he ran the whole race and finished 15th.

# Carl Edwards had the line of the night after his car blew an engine (he finished 39th). Edwards, who had not been good all night, said: "That was a mercy killing.''

# Chase drivers took only 4 of the top 10 spots. That's the worst performance by title contenders in the Chase this year.

# David Gilliland finished 25th in a fourth car for Joe Gibbs Racing. He'll run that car twice more this season.

# Martin Truex Jr.'s 9th-place finish was his best run since placing sixth at Darlington in May.

# Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s 38th-place finish marks the seventh consecutive race he's placed outside the top 15.

# Joey Logano's fifth-place finish was his second-best result of the season behind only his win at New Hampshire in June.

# Johnson's win was his sixth at Lowe's Motor Speedway -- tying Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip for most wins at the track.

# Casey Mears' 7th-place finish was his best run since taking sixth at Michigan in August.

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