Turns out everyone was a little ahead of themselves.
The wild-card race wasn't last week at Talladega, Ala., but Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway. At least as far as NASCAR championship points leader Jimmie Johnson is concerned.
All week the three-time defending Sprint Cup Series champ refused to buy into everyone else's hype that he had a historic fourth consecutive title wrapped up. He cautioned, chastised and -- as it turned out, correctly predicted -- that the 184-point lead over the field he took into Sunday's race wasn't enough to seal the deal.
After being collected in a crash only three laps into the 334-lap Dickies 500, Johnson's nearly one-race points advantage has shrunk to only 73 points over Hendrick Motorsports teammate Mark Martin with two races remaining.
Where: Martinsville Speedway Time: Sunday 1:30 p.m. EST TV/Radio: ABC, MRN Radio Twitter: Updates @ FanHouseRacing Forecast: Mostly sunny, High 60s Distance: 500 laps (263 miles) Pole Winner: Ryan Newman 2008 Winner: Jimmie Johnson
The Storyline
Jeff Gordon's last, best hope to stay in Jimmie Johnson's zip code for the 2009 championship might just be Sunday at Martinsville Speedway for two reasons -- the perks from his second-place qualifying run and Jimmie Johnson's mediocre starting spot.
And for their teammate Mark Martin splitting the point difference between Johnson and Gordon in the standings, a fourth-place starting effort might also be critical to bridging the 90-point gap between the No. 48 and No. 5.
It took just 3 hours, 24 minutes and 20 seconds of racing action Sunday at Dover International Speedway to allow "Superman" to reassert his dominance over NASCAR Sprint Cup racing.
Jimmie Johnson pounded the field around the concrete one-mile oval for his fifth career win at Dover and fourth of the season to take home the AAA 400 trophy. Johnson led some 271 laps and never looked back despite late cautions that brought the competition back to his bumper three times in final 100 laps.
In doing so, Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus served notice that they don't expect a change from recent years at the celebration following the season's final race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
LOUDON, N.H. (AP) -- When a young driver isn't sure how to approach an on-track situation, they often ask themselves "What would Mark Martin do?''
With a championship on the line, Martin fooled the competition and won.
The 50-year-old driver held off Juan Pablo Montoya on a three-lap sprint to the finish Sunday to win the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship opener at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. After, Montoya accused Martin of holding him up at the start of the second lap.
"What he did, not cool at all,'' Montoya radioed his crew. "I could have wrecked him.''
Ryan Newman is back where he's spent his entire career proving he belongs: contending for a season championship.
For the first time since 2006, last year's Daytona 500 winner Newman is part of NASCAR's Chase for the Championship, a 10-race playoff stretch that kicks off Sunday at New Hampshire International Raceway.
He enters the Sylvania 300 ranked 10th in the standings, only 40 points back from leader Mark Martin, and coming off three consecutive top-10 finishes in the No. 39 U.S. Army-sponsored Chevrolet.
Newman, 31, will be FanHouse's exclusive go-fast, go-to man for the Chase for the Championship partnering with FanHouse for weekly features and interviews every week throughout the next 10 races determining the 2009 Sprint Cup champion.
Tony Stewart has been ranked first or second in NASCAR's marquee Sprint Cup Series championship for the last 19 weeks. He's led the standings since May 31, building a comfy 100-point margin by late June and eventually an impressive 284-point edge over second place by August.
Stewart entered last Saturday's Chevy Rock & Roll 400 at Richmond International Raceway with a 234-point advantage in the championship.
RICHMOND, Va. -- Fifty-year old Mark Martin continues to make a strong case for his emotional NASCAR championship run, winning the pole position for Saturday night's Rock & Roll 400 at Richmond International Raceway.
It's Martin's sixth pole of the year, tying him with Brian Vickers for the most in NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series. His four wins is also tied for most of the season -- a victory total that equals his wins from 2000-2008 combined.
"This year, I've been getting some nice laps,'' Martin said in the ultimate understatement.
NASCAR statisticians have some newly-released numbers that are guaranteed to get die-hard race fans talking.
Those numbers concern the sport's top drivers and how many all-time combined wins they have across the three major racing series (Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Camping World Trucks).
At first glance, the list looks rather typical. The usual names – Petty, Allison, Yarborough, Pearson, Waltrip, etc., are on it. That's not surprising, given their prowess in the Cup Series, where they all earned most of their career triumphs.
But as you work your way down the list, one name and statistic hits you straight in the eyeballs like running head-on into the first turn at Darlington Raceway. We all know Richard Petty won 200 races (all Sprint Cup events) in his career. But look at who is No. 9 on the all-time combined wins list: Kyle Busch.
Thoughts, ramblings and more from a 500 lapper in Thunder Valley.
Marcos Ambrose is certainly making a name for himself in the Sprint Cup Series, and the way he's doing it is just mind-boggling.
His Michael Waltrip Racing-prepared cars aren't on level with Hendrick, Roush or Gibbs and the guy truly has less experience in NASCAR-style stock cars than just about every driver out there. Yet, he's compiled 4 Top-5s and 7 Top-10s with a team that has obviously worked quite hard.
Turns out everyone was a little ahead of themselves.
Race: Tums 500
It took just 3 hours, 24 minutes and 20 seconds of racing action Sunday at Dover International Speedway to allow "Superman" to reassert his dominance over NASCAR 
LOUDON, N.H. (AP) -- When a young driver isn't sure how to approach an on-track situation, they often ask themselves "What would 
RICHMOND, Va. -- Fifty-year old 
NASCAR statisticians have some newly-released numbers that are guaranteed to get die-hard race fans talking.
It is a very real possibility that four-time winners 
Thoughts, ramblings and more from a 500 lapper in Thunder Valley.
