Jimmie Johnson wins at Martinsville to clinch chance at 7th championship

Jimmie Johnson will be racing for a record-tying seventh championship at Homestead in three weeks.

Johnson won Sunday’s race at Martinsville to automatically advance to the winner-take-all race of NASCAR’s Chase at Homestead on Nov. 20. Johnson won his sixth championship in 2013, the last year before NASCAR changed the format of the Chase to eliminate drivers and create a four-way race for the championship on the final weekend of the season.

“I’ve been trying to ignore this conversation about seven and now I can’t,” Johnson said.

Only Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty have seven championships. Johnson already has a claim to be considered the best driver in Cup Series history. It gets stronger if (or when) he ties the sport’s two icons.

“I’ll probably lie to all of you guys and say I’m not going to think about it at all,” Johnson said. “But it’s inevitable. Fortunately, I don’t have to think about it for three weeks. But we’re going to enjoy this and savor it..”

It’s Johnson’s ninth win at Martinsville and it came during a race that will be remembered more for a 29-lap caution with less than 150 laps to go.

Carl Edwards blew a right front tire and hit the wall as green-flag pit stops were happening. Since Edwards caused a caution as many teams had already stopped for tires, NASCAR attempted to sort out what drivers and cars were laps down and just where they were in the running order.

The problem was compounded when Johnson lost fuel pressure during the caution before he headed to pit road. He stopped on track before he was able to get his car refired and lost positions. But since so many cars were a lap down because they had pitted, Johnson didn’t lose too many spots.

He ultimately restarted fourth, though there was a ton of confusion as to what drivers should start where. AJ Allmendinger was the race leader at the time of the caution and he lapped Matt Kenseth just as Kenseth exited the pits. But Allmendinger had a similar issue to Johnson’s and he too stopped on track. So Kenseth ultimately got his lap back and restarted third.

Yeah, we told you there was a lot of confusion. There was no immediate explanation from NASCAR during the race as to what transpired during the caution.

And Johnson got a big break earlier in the race too. A caution flew on lap 200 for a torn banner on the backstretch wall. A couple laps before the caution, Johnson had contact with Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski (who finished second) and had significant smoke from a tire rub.

Without a caution, Johnson would have likely been forced to pit under green and lost multiple laps. Instead, he got to pit with the rest of the field and keep his spot near the front of the field. Per our review of the TV broadcast, the banner had torn in the vicinity of laps 192 and 193, meaning it flapped in the wind for about seven laps before the caution.

 

Here’s how the points standings currently look regarding the eight drivers remaining in the Chase.

 

1. Jimmie Johnson (won Martinsville)
2. Denny Hamlin (3rd), 3,039
3. Matt Kenseth (4th), 3,039
4. Kyle Busch (5th), 3,037
5. Joey Logano (9th), 3,033
6. Kevin Harvick (20th), 3,021
7. Kurt Busch (22nd), 3,019
8. Carl Edwards (36th), 3,005