Lots of things to talk about folks but first let’s get to the champion.

 

 

About 45 minutes after the race, I went back out to the stage at the start/finish line to see what was happening with four-time champion Jimmie Johnson and the team. I saw Johnson’s dad near the stage and started to interview him. He had some interesting things to say. He got to spend about 10 minutes with Jimmie a few hours before the race in the back of the hauler. He said he told Jimmie about fishing in the Keys and how he was riding his motorcycle this week as his son autographed items for folks. Gary Johnson said his son was focused. Another interesting story he told me was how Jimmie was such a fan of Cale Yarborough when he was younger _ and that was when Yarborough had Hardee’s as a sponsor. Well, young Jimmie Johnson thought that meant Yarborough worked at Hardee’s and he always asked his family to stop there in hopes of seeing Yarborough.

 

 

Anyway, after hearing those stories, a figured approached from behind and grabbed me on the shoulder. It was Jimmie Johnson heading back to the stage after a round of interviews. Well, he looked at his father and let out a deep, heavy sigh. I could just see the weight of this title run on him and how it had worn him out and with the Adrenaline rubbing off, the sight was somewhat stark to see. After releasing the sigh, Johnson continued walking to the stage for more photos and things.

 

 

As I walked back to the media center, I went by Victory Lane. Just after Chad Knaus walked by (en route to a restroom), Denny Hamlin was being led out and saw Knaus. He ran down Knaus and they embraced as Hamlin congratulated him on the win.

 

 

Another thing that stood out was after the race seeing Knaus, standing on the pit box, pull out his mobile phone to tape the scene of his crew guys celebrating on pit road as Johnson came by. Knaus later said he doesn’t do as good of job appreciating the moment and wanted to have something to remember helping Johnson become the first driver in series history to win four consecutive series titles. Later, he got the camera out and videotaped the media in the press conference room after Johnson, sitting next to him, gave him the No. 1 sign, well, a “friendly’’ No. 1 sign if you know what I mean as they both laughed.

 

 

One last image that stands out is after interviewing Knaus as we walked up pit road to the stage for the championship celebration, I noticed a few crew members from other teams stop and watch as Knaus walked up the pits with an HBO crew filming him (remember they’re doing Johnson’s 24/7 documentary leading up to the Daytona 500. It was just interesting to see how others reacted to watching Knaus walk by.

 

 

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Let’s get to some quotes from folks Sunday night

 

 

JIMMIE JOHNSON (finished 5^th)

 

 

ON THE PRESSURE HE FACED:”I feel that I managed the pressure a lot better this year. There was a lot of pressure and definitely relieved the pressure is off. I feel so light all of a sudden.’’

 

 

ON IF THEY CAN KEEP THIS STREAK GOING: “I don’t know what to really think about a fifth (title in a row). We’re certainly going to show up next year and try to go about business as usual. If we can keep rolling – I can’t believe we’ve made history now and if we were able to do it a fifth year, even if it doesn’t come next year, we’ve got to be very thankful for what we’ve accomplished.

 

 

JEFF GORDON IS CALLED FOUR-TIME FOR HIS CHAMPIONSHIPS, WHAT WILLYOUR NICKNAME BE: “I don’t know what you can call us. I’m sure you guys can think of some good names. Four Time has a nice ring to it. I’m sure we’ll come up with something. Maybe I’ll make a fool of myself tonight and we’ll have a good one after that.’’

 

 

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With Jimmie Johnson winning the championship, Mark Martin finished 2^nd in the points for a fifth time. Only Richard Petty has finished second more times. He finished second a total of six times. Of course his 7 titles make people forget about that. Martin is now tied with Bobby Allison with five runner-up spots each.

 

 

Here’s what Mark Martin (finished 12^th) had to say:

 

 

IF THERE IS FRUTRATION: “There’s no frustration. I know you’d love it. I know you all would lave it, but there’s no frustration. I’m very proud of what we accomplished. On top of all of that, I had more fun than anybody. So how could you, what else can you say, man? I had a blast. It’s been an honor and a privilege. I didn’t leave nothing. I didn’t leave anything anywhere. My race team dug as hard as they could dig and we accomplished more than anybody else in the garage this year except fro the 48. That ought to be enough to make you proud.’’

 

 

HOW DID YOUR RACE GO: “Our car didn’t work well today. It didn’t work well and we really struggled with it. And as the sun went down and we went to the back, we came in and pitted and tried to do some work on it to try to improve it and it didn’t really improve it a whole lot, so then we were stuck with sorry track position on top of not having a great race car. 

 

 

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Denny Hamlin won the race and finished the season with a career-high four wins. Hamlin also jumped three spots to fifth in the points with the win.

 

 

Here’s what Denny Hamlin had to say about his win:

 

 

FELT ABOUT CHASE PERFORMANCE: You’ve got to perform really good and be flawless those 10 (Chase races). It looks like the trend has been you get one bad race if you want to be champion. Each one of those races we blew up, we were leading and if we had just averaged seventh or eighth I think in those races, then we’re out on the front stage celebrating right now (instead of Johnson). But on the other hand, then the 48 maybe would have to run harder or perform better. So, it’s tough to play the numbers game and what if. There’s some things I need to do to get better. I feel like through the season I’ve gotten better. I’m figuring out what I need to make my race car better. Mike (Ford, crew chief) is starting to figure it out. We’re getting on the same page now, figuring out what we need to be good at racing. One thing we’re going to have to improve on next year is qualifying. We can’t come from like 38^th like we did today. It looks good on paper, but realistically you put yourself more at risk.’’

 

 

ON SCORING HIS FIRST WIN ON A BANKED TRACK: “I think everyone kind of puts us in a box and they name off Martinsville, Richmond, Pocono, those race tracks and say that, yeah, we can win those races. But they don’t put us in that category at other race tracks. And I think it just shows that we’re strong. We’ve been a really good race team on all different types of race tracks. We felt going into the Chase our stronger suit was going to be the bigger race tracks. I think it just shows that we’re starting to come into our own as a race team and perform well everywhere.’’

 

 

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            Jeff Burton finished 2^nd for the second race in a row. He finished the season with four consecutive top-10s and six consecutive top-15s.

 

 

Here’s what he said:

 

 

ON THE LATE SEASON TURNAROUND AND ABOUT FIXING A BUNCH OF CARS: “I think it’s more than that. I think, obviously, you’ve got to bring good hardware to the race track and we did push the wrong buttons this winner (with the cars) and played catch-up obviously. With Todd (Berrier) coming on board (as crew chief), we’ve gotten together pretty quickly and had fast race cars pretty much all four weekends and that’s certainly … we’ve put a different group of people together, a real strong group of people and I think that’s helped us as well.

 

 

DO YOU FEEL ENCOURAGED BY LATE SEASON RUNS: “I certainly think that all of us at RCR are encouraged. I think it’s important to understand that we’re not where we need to be and if we were, one of us would be over there where Denny (Hamlin) is right now.’’

 

 

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SHORT TAKES

 

# Kevin Harvick finished third, giving Richard Childress Racing two cars in the top three with Jeff Burton 2^nd.

 

 

# Hendrick Motorsports took the top 3 spots in the points with Jimmie Johnson first, Mark Martin second and Jeff Gordon third. That’s the first time that has happened in series history.

 

 

# Kurt Busch finished fourth in the race and fourth in the points.

 

 

# Carl Edwards finished 7^th to end the season winless after winning a series-high nine races last year.

 

# Tony Stewart and Juan Pablo Montoya each had no comment after the race about their incidents. Montoya was upset at Stewart, blaming him for a wreck early in the race. After making repairs, Montoya returned and wrecked Stewart. NASCAR penalized Montoya two laps for the incident.

 

 

# Car owner Rick Hendrick was not at Homestead on Sunday. He was back in North Carolina to be with his niece, who was undergoing a liver transplant.

 

 

# Jimmie Johnson won the championship by 141 points on Mark Martin.

 

 

# Martin Truex Jr. finished ninth in his final race for Earnhardt Ganassi Racing. He joins Michael Waltrip Racing next year.

 

 

# Joey Logano won Rookie of the Year honors this season for Cup.

 

 

# Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished 28^th on Sunday and ends the season 25^th in the points. It’s the worst he’s finished in a full season in Cup.

 

 

# Michael Waltrip finished 30^th. This is his final fulltime season in Cup. He’ll be back at Daytona. Expect him to run the restrictor-plate races in Cup and maybe a few more, depending on sponsorship.

 

 

# Reed Sorenson finished 40^th in his final race for Richard Petty Motorsports.

 

 

OK, so what kind of a nickname should Jimmie Johnson have as a four-time champion? Not Four Time since that’s Gordon’s nickname?