MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Martinsville Speedway is the place where Jimmie Johnson started his four-race winning streak a year ago on his way to his second consecutive NASCAR championship.
As rain fell Friday and wiped out qualifying, putting the points-leading Johnson on the pole for the second week in a row, the drivers closest to him in the Chase for the Sprint Cup couldn’t help but wonder if a third straight title was almost a foregone conclusion.
“I don’t know where Jimmie gets his horseshoes,” Carl Edwards said, “but he’s got amazing luck, and they do everything right, so we just have to hope for something strange to happen.”
Edwards and everyone else know, though, that time is running out.
After today’s Tums QuikPak 500 on NASCAR’s shortest, trickiest track, only four events remain, and Johnson will be the defending champion in three of them.
Tony Stewart, who has won two championships, said Saturday that it’s difficult not to look at what Johnson has accomplished the last three seasons and marvel.
“It’s hard to win it once,” Stewart said of the championship, which he won in 2002 and 2005. “To win it two years in a row is extremely hard, and to just be in a position where you have the opportunity to try and win it three years in a row is unbelievable.”
But Johnson hasn’t opened a prohibitive lead by any stretch. At least not yet.
Jeff Burton is second in points, 69 behind, and Greg Biffle is third, another 17 back. After that comes Edwards, whose six victories for the season are the second-most in the series, but who has finished one spot behind Johnson twice in the first five Chase races.
“I think it’s 35 points a race we have to make up or something, and that’s assuming that Jimmie doesn’t have any bad luck,” said Edwards, who has finished 29th and 33rd in the last two weeks. “I feel like all we can do now is just go race as hard as we can.”
Footnotes.
Johnny Benson passed Ron Hornaday Jr. with 46 laps to go and won the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway and moved into the series lead with his fifth victory of the season.
• Championship leader Lewis Hamilton put himself in prime position to claim the Formula One title by taking the pole position for the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai.
Today’s race
NASCAR SPRINT CUP
TUMS QuikPak 500
Site:Martinsville, Va.
TV: 11:30 a.m., ABC
Track: Martinsville Speedway (oval, 0.526 miles, 12 degrees banking in turns).
Race distance: 263 miles, 500 laps.
Last race: Jeff Burton gambled on his final pit stop and was rewarded with a victory that pushed him into title contention. Burton led entering the final round of pit stops, then took gas only to ensure he’d come out in front at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. He staved off a brief challenge from points leader Jimmie Johnson when the race resumed with 34 laps to go, but held on to snap a 25-race winless streak. The victory, his second of the season, pushed Burton from fourth to second in the Chase for the championship standings with five races to go. Carl Edwards, who entered the race second in the standings, lost power in his Ford early and finished 33rd.
Next race: Pep Boys Auto 500, Hampton, Ga., Oct. 26
On the Net:
Points standings
1. Jimmie Johnson, 5,878
2. Jeff Burton, 5,809
3. Greg Biffle, 5,792
4. Carl Edwards, 5,710
5. Clint Bowyer, 5,693
6. Kevin Harvick, 5,671
7. Tony Stewart, 5,650
8. Jeff Gordon, 5,633
9. Kyle Busch, 5,552
10. Dale Earnhardt Jr., 5,524
11. Matt Kenseth, 5,518
12. Denny Hamlin, 5,498
