Jimmie Johnson: Unrelenting and unstoppable

A payback incident on Lap 155 of Sunday's Ford 400 could have turned the championship finale upside down.

Juan Montoya, fuming about spending 28 laps in the garage because of an earlier run-in, pulled up on Tony Stewart and knocked him into the inside wall.

Predictably, though, Jimmie Johnson was nowhere near the two hotheads.

Johnson's knack for avoiding compromising situations is just one reason why he has become the first driver in NASCAR's 61 years to win four consecutive championships.

It's how he drove to a near-flawless fifth-place finish Sunday night and beat 50-year-old Mark Martin and fellow four-time champion Jeff Gordon in a 1-2-3 points finish by Hendrick Motorsports.

"I'm not sure where it comes from," Johnson said of his uncanny ability to steer clear of trouble. "I think I look pretty far ahead on the track, and that's helpful.

"A lot of guys run tape or have different things over their windshield to block the sun out, and I'm always cutting that stuff out so I can look further down."

Only a crash or mechanical failure would have kept Johnson from joining Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon as the only drivers with more than three NASCAR titles.

With team owner Rick Hendrick in North Carolina with his critically ill niece, Alesha Gainey, Johnson completed yet another race in which all the parts and pieces on his No. 48 Chevy held together and his Chad Knaus-led crew scored Olympic 10s.

As if it isn't enough that Johnson has won 30 percent of Chase races run since the postseason-type format was introduced in 2004, Johnson and his team simply haven't made mistakes.

If they were in the NFL, they'd have a plus-40 turnover ratio. If they were in the American League, they'd have a .999 fielding percentage.

If they were in a boxing ring, somebody would be calling the paramedics for the other guy.

Consider that during the 40 Chase races of their historic championship streak, Johnson has failed to finish once. That was because of a crash at Talladega in 2006, and Talladega, being a wreckfest anyway, barely counts.

He had a wreck two weeks ago at Texas, when Sam Hornish Jr. ran into him on the third lap. But Johnson finished the race after he refused to get out of his mangled car, and his crew used every tool ever invented to get the thing back on the track.

That only served to motivate Johnson.

"The pressure of winning the fourth didn't really hit me until I hit the fence at Texas," Johnson said. "Then it was like, man, you can't relax. You can't hope or think things are going to be smooth. You've got to go out and earn this thing."

Which Johnson did by promptly winning the next race at Phoenix and finishing the job Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Other drivers win races, too. Denny Hamlin won two during the Chase, including Sunday's finale. But Hamlin had two blown engines and finished fifth in the points.

Johnson and his team have been so unrelenting, it also seems as if the competition has given up on catching them in favor of simply waiting them out.

J.D. Gibbs, Hamlin's car owner, gave Johnson and Knaus their due but also pointed out that every dynasty has an expiration date.

"I have a unique perspective from watching the NFL," he said. "That's not going to last forever. I don't care if it's the Steelers, the Redskins, the 49ers. So our goal is to be ready whenever we can take the mantle."

The trouble with Stewart and Montoya on Sunday started on Lap 117, when Montoya bumped Stewart from behind, and the two-time champion came back and sideswiped the former Formula One star's car.

That sent Montoya to the garage, and when he returned, he made it clear he had revenge on his mind.

Johnson, as aware as ever, took the necessary avoidance measures.

"I'd heard from our spotter that the 42 (Montoya) was back out on the track," Johnson said. "For two laps, or maybe a lap and a half, I could see two red cars kind of crossing paths and a lot going on.

"I just started slowing down. I figured something was going to happen, and sure enough it did. So I had some time to get slowed down and get out of harm's way."

He's fast, he's smart, he's aware. And right now, Jimmie Johnson is unstoppable.