Jimmie Johnson Close to Fourth Championship

The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season is a war that is won by the racer and team that has the most consistent finish in all of the included races. Points are awarded on a race to race basis for both teams and racers, which are the basis for the standings that determine the overall winner at the end of the Sprint Cup Series. Winning a race is nice but to win the overall you need to do more than just win a race or two, you also need to have a good showing in the races you don’t win. To do this, a racer has to protect his car as much as possible while he’s racing on the track and the team needs to do everything they can to help make the car as good as they can and help the driver do his best.

The boys are getting ready to run

The best of the class in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series has been Jimmie Johnson during the last few years of this decade and he and his team have been perennial winners with all the traits referred to above. For the last three years Jimmie Johnson has won the overall in the Sprint Cup Series in his Chevrolet and he’s at present trying to make sure the hogtie he has on the 2009 Sprint Cup Series doesn’t get loose, so he can win his fourth in a row.

Saturday Jimmie Johnson pulled a little closer to his ultimate goal of winning the 2009 Sprint Cup Series Championship by finishing second the Tums Fast Relief 500 to Denny Hamlin in his Toyota on the .526-mile short track of Martinsville Speedway on Sunday. Denny Hamlin had a strong car all day as he was able to pass Johnson with 138 laps to go in the race and then hold off Johnson during a series of restarts to keep his car in front long enough to take the win.

Johnson seemed to sense that he didn’t really need to win at the end and kind of let off the gas a bit and coasted in for the second place finish. Hamlin just kept his foot on the gas pedal and raced across the finish line ahead of Johnson during the last two laps of the race.

Juan Montoya finished third in front of a hard charging Kyle Busch in fourth, just ahead of Jeff Gordon in sixth and Jamie McMurray in seventh. Mark Martin had another good showing and finished eighth, Tony Stewart came in ninth, while the top ten was completed by Kevin Harvick.

“Image: Zuma Press”