Chad Knaus pitted #48-Jimmie Johnson at the right time and stole a sixth place at Talladega, putting tons of daylight between the #48 and the nearest contenders. Texas doesn’t look promising for his challengers as Johnson has four podium finishes [1st, 2nd, 3rd] in his last six starts at TMS. He ran his Top 15 or better Chase streak to a simply amazing 33 races. Update on the highlights of that streak:
* No finish worse than 15th
* 29 Top 10s out of 32 races
* 22 Top 5s
* 20 Podium Finishes
* 11 Wins
Kurt Busch threatened to clinch Chase I early in 2004, but a blown engine in race #6 at Atlanta caused a 42nd place finish and allowed Johnson to make a strong run that stopped just 8 points short of overtaking Busch at Homestead. Johnson led by 183 points at this time last year but only managed a 15th at Texas and that kept the #48 from clinching at Phoenix. #5-Mark Martin leads #24-Jeff Gordon by only 8 points heading to TMS. #42-Juan Pablo Montoya is 55 behind in 4th place and #14-Tony Stewart is 95 out in fifth. If Johnson decides to skip Texas to make it interesting, all four would be knee deep in the championship hunt. #11-Denny Hamlin’s blown engine at Dega dropped him 11 points behind Carl Edwards for 10th place and the final speaking spot at the Las Vegas banquet. See year-by-year comparision after 7 races, race-by-race for 2009 on my Chase Stats page after race 7 page and Chase history, see how things would had looked back to 1975 if the Chase was used, Chase rules and more on my 2009 Chase Rules and History page.(11-5-2009)
