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Coming From The Back Of The Pack

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By TONY FABRIZIO, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 17, 2007

Updated: 11/17/2007 12:46 am

HOMESTEAD - Jimmie Johnson is not only on the verge of winning a second consecutive Nextel Cup championship, he is also well on his way to becoming one of NASCAR's all-time greats.

To think, he was largely unknown when he moved up to Winston/Nextel Cup in 2002 with a new fourth team at Hendrick Motorsports co-owned by Rick Hendrick and Jeff Gordon.

Johnson didn't even try stock car racing until 1998, when he was Rookie of the Year in the American Speed Association. In 72 Busch Series starts before his rookie season in Cup, he managed only one win and four top-five finishes with no poles.

Even Robby Gordon, who "grew up" with Johnson in Southern California and raced against him in various off-road series, didn't foresee him becoming a superstar in stock car racing.

"Not after following his Busch career," Gordon said Friday in his hauler at Homestead-Miami Speedway. "He did two years of Busch and had one win on fuel mileage."

But Johnson, 32, has become one of the best of this decade. His victory last week at Phoenix - giving him the first four-race winning streak of any driver since 1998 - was the 33rd of his career. It moved him to 18th on the all-time list, two wins behind veteran Mark Martin and only 11 behind icon Bill Elliott.

Johnson will take an 86-point lead over Gordon into Sunday's season-ending Ford 400, and even if Gordon wins the race and leads the most laps, Johnson is assured the title if he finishes at least 18th. He would become only the third active driver with multiple championships, joining four-time champion Gordon and two-time champion Tony Stewart.

"He jumped in a stock car with crew chief Chad Knaus, and it's almost like the Jeff Gordon-Ray Evernham story," Robby Gordon said. "They have just been phenomenal. They have clicked like very few people do."

Off-Road Background

Johnston grew up in El Cajon, Calif., a hilly town east of San Diego. He started riding dirt motorcycles at age 5 with the help of his father, Gary, who worked for a tire company and raced motorcycles on the weekends, and mother, Cathy, who drove a school bus.

Eventually, Johnson moved to four wheels and raced buggies and trucks in several off-road divisions, including Mickey Thompson stadium series, SCORE and SODA. He won six series championships, but never won a major off-road desert race.

Few drivers have made the transition from off-road racing to NASCAR. Robby Gordon is another notable exception. The versatile Gordon, who won the Baja 1000 last year and finished fifth in the famed desert race this week, has won in both NASCAR and Indy-style racing.

Gordon attributes Johnson's smoothness in a stock car to his off-road background.

"In off-road racing, you don't just race on dirt, you race on many different kinds of dirt," he said. "You have pavement, you have gravel, you have sand, you have silt, you have dirt. It teaches you a lot of control. It teaches you a lot of throttle control. He has adapted well."

But Johnson didn't adapt right away. Not only did he struggle to get good finishes in the Busch Series driving for Stan and Randy Herzog, he also wrecked a lot in the No. 92 Chevrolet.

"I had a great career with the Herzogs in ASA," Johnson said. "We had a new start up team and Busch, and I'll certainly take responsibility for things I did wrong in learning my way around. I think my rookie year 2000 I tore up 15 cars. And as we got into year two and the team needed to grow, I don't think we were growing in the direction we needed to.

"And with me leaving for Hendrick Motorsports in 2002, and with the challenges of any driver leaving a team, we didn't deal with that all that well internally."Johnson offers one other explanation for why he didn't fare better in the Busch Series - one that also explains why he has done few Busch races since moving up to Nextel Cup.

"There's a big difference between the two cars Cup and Busch, and I'm just much better with the higher horsepower Cup car," he said. "I think you look over history and see guys that dominate Busch and get in the Cup car and it doesn't necessarily work out. Then you have guys like Tony Stewart and myself that didn't have the best Busch careers but have had great Cup careers."

Gordon Impressed Early

Back when he was racing off-road at the Los Angeles Coliseum, Johnson was introduced by his supercross mentor, Rick Johnson (no relation), to then Chevrolet racing boss Herb Fishel.

Fishel put Johnson in a factory-backed ride in the stadium series and brought him to the attention of Hendrick, who was in the midst of winning four Winston Cup championships in five years in the late '90s with Gordon and Terry Labonte.

Jeff Gordon got to know Johnson after Johnson approached him for advice, and he pitched the Californian as his choice for the new No. 48 team. Hendrick liked the suggestion and sold Johnson to sponsor Lowe's.

"I remember meeting with Lowe's and the chairman Robert Niblock was sitting there saying, 'Can you win?'" Hendrick recalled. "Jimmie said, 'I can win.'"

Now, barring disaster Sunday, Johnson will become the first repeat champion in NASCAR's top level since Jeff Gordon in 1997-98.

That Johnson has won - and won big with little previous success in stock cars - says something about Jeff Gordon's instincts as a car owner and talent evaluator.

"The reason I suggested him to Rick Hendrick is because he impressed me before he was ever in a Cup car," Gordon said. "And I really thought if we put him in the kind of car and equipment that I had been in for all those years, he could have the same type of success that I had,

"And to me, he has the capability of having more success."

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