“We loved change, philosophically speaking, inside Hendrick Motorsports. Change meant opportunity”.
Jimmie Johnson
Editor’s note: This is the 35th in a 40-part series highlighting 40 of the greatest wins in the history of Hendrick Motorsports to finish its 40th anniversary season. A new installment will be released each day from Nov. 22, 2024 through New Year’s Eve. Votes were taken from Hendrick Motorsports employees as well as representatives of the NASCAR Hall of Fame and Racing Insights with all unanimous selections being ushered in automatically. The remaining wins were deliberated and decided upon by a small panel.
CONCORD, N.C. - When watching the history books be re-written again and again, it's easy in the moment to utter the phrase, "that record will never be broken". Yet, as time goes on, records seem to come and go.
Younger drivers prevail at a high level and dominating performances arise. All causing records to change hands. But seven championships in the modern era is a feat that stands out above the rest. One that will likely never be touched again.
And that honor belongs to none other than Jimmie Johnson.
Larry McReynolds, former crew chief and current NASCAR analyst with FOX Sports, summed Johnson's run of form well in a recent interview with HendrickMotorsports.com.
“NASCAR kept changing the format trying to outrun them but Jimmie and Chad just kept figuring it out,” McReynolds said. “They did it with 10 drivers, then they did it with 12 drivers. They did it with every aero package known to man. They did it with a wing, they did it with a spoiler and one year, we even ran both. But it didn’t matter what the rules package was or what the format was, those guys were always the first to figure it out.”
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| RACE FACTS | |
|---|---|
| Date: | November 20, 2016 |
| Venue: | Homestead-Miami Speedway |
| Winner: | Jimmie Johnson |
| Hendrick Motorsports win: | No. 245 |
| Laps led by winner: | 3 |
| Starting position of winner: | 14th (started at the rear) |
| Top 10: | 1. Jimmie Johnson; 2. Kyle Larson; 3. Kevin Harvick; 4. Joey Logano; 5. Jamie McMurray; 6. Kyle Busch; 7. Matt Kenseth; 8. A.J. Allmendinger; 9. Denny Hamlin; 10. Michael McDowell |
| Did you know? | 2016 was the third year of the knockout playoff format and the first time Johnson had made it to the Championship 4. |
From 2006 to 2010, the driver of the No. 48 entry had a firm grip on the competition winning a record-setting five NASCAR Cup Series titles in a row. Add another crown in 2013 and Johnson sat at six championships, one short of tying Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt for the top spot with seven.
But in 2014, the playoff format underwent the biggest change in the sport's history.
While the format had been tweaked slightly since the introduction of "The Chase" in 2004, 2014's new rules would redefine what a driver needed to do in order to be crowned champion. Similar to stick-and-ball sports, the newly revamped knockout-style postseason format would eliminate drivers per round and lead to a winner-take-all final race. Four drivers would enter the title event with an even shot to win the championship.
“We loved change, philosophically speaking, inside Hendrick Motorsports," Johnson said in an interview with HendrickMotorsports.com. "Change meant opportunity."
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But growing pains with the new championship format hit during the first two years.
In 2014, an early elimination in the Round of 12 ended Johnson's bid for a seventh title. 2015 provided one of the most shocking exits in playoff history when Johnson, the No. 1 seed, failed to advance out of the Round of 16 due to a mechanical issue at Dover Motor Speedway. Nine wins across two seasons did not produce the record-tying championship.
“If Martinsville and Texas weren’t where they were in the schedules and it was one of my bad tracks, I may not have made the championship round in 2016 for my seventh," Johnson said. "We loved car changes. We succeeded through change and it was largely because of the ingenuity we had in the shop, our team and the guy sitting on the box for me.”
Jimmie Johnson
But 2016 proved to be different. Rather than the misfortune, the No. 48 team was clutch down the stretch. A win at Charlotte Motor Speedway locked the team into the Round of 8. Another victory at Martinsville Speedway earned Johnson a berth in the Championship 4.
“If Martinsville and Texas weren’t where they were in the schedules and it was one of my bad tracks, I may not have made the championship round in 2016 for my seventh," Johnson said. "We loved car changes. We succeeded through change and it was largely because of the ingenuity we had in the shop, our team and the guy sitting on the box for me.”
Only the championship race stood in the way of history.
At Homestead-Miami Speedway for the championship race, early issues threatened to derail the title fight before it even began. In a recent interview, Crew chief Chad Kanus detailed the mountain that stood in the way for his team.
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“We had a post-race grid penalty, so we had to start in the rear of the field, which at that point is just daunting knowing the 22 and 19 (other Championship 4 drivers) were a little bit faster than we were kind of that whole weekend,” Knaus said. “We were just a pinch off".
“But again, we were a long run team. Jimmie being the champion he is, he hopped in the car and started dead last and drove straight away up to fifth. He was passing three and four cars a lap, it was awesome."
The initial drive to the front was indeed a spectacle.
Despite starting from the rear, Johnson had nearly cracked the top 10 by the time the race's first yellow for incident came out on lap 28. Under the caution, Johnson pitted for four tires and settled into the top five as the run progressed. However, that seemed to be where the team was destined to stay.
Through the middle portion of the race, Johnson still struggled to move forward. And adjustments made throughout the race did little to help the cause. However, a caution flag on lap 253 would change the course of the title fight.
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On the ensuing restart, Joey Logano attempted to pass Carl Edwards for the lead and point position in the title fight. Going into turn one, the competitors made contact, resulting in massive crash that collected several cars as Edwards first hit the inside wall, then slid up the track into the outside barrier. Johnson, who was in the first car behind the two, avoided the incident to assume the top spot among the championship contenders.
"We were floating around that third-to-fifth range the majority of the event and then we get ourselves in a situation where there’s a late-race restart and the 19 and 22 have that collision, they took each other out, really. We came down pit road, we were able to have a great pit stop, restarted on the front row and Jimmie was able to go out there and rip around Kyle Larson and get the win.”
Knaus may have understated that last part.
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Although Johnson sat on the front row for the last run to the finish, he lined up on the non-preferred inside line against one of the Cup Series most talented drivers, Kyle Larson. Directly behind him was Logano with Kyle Busch, the other member of the Championship 4, also in hot pursuit.
Coming up through the gears, Johnson nailed the restart. Off of the second turn, he cleared Larson for the lead. The clean air proved to be the final piece of the puzzle for the No. 48 entry as the car pulled away from the competition.
A seventh championship had finally come. History had been made in the process.
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Although 2016 would prove to be Johnson's last title, the lasting memories are not lost on him. Johnson was also quick to credit Hendrick Motorsports as a chief reason for the lasting success.
“Coming in, I didn’t really know what the reality was going to be, but it changed my life. It far exceeded any expectations that I could’ve hoped for. As the organization evolved for over 19 years, I was there and that commitment to winning was consistent and the commitment to family and people you cannot find anywhere else," Johnson said.
“It’s so rare to have had that much success, humility, culture and all of these elements that must be there. Or they (Hendrick Motorsports) wouldn’t have stood the test of time like they have.”