Is Jimmie Johnson A Betting Flop

Atlanta Motor Speedway -- 03/09/08

Author: Jeremy Dunn

Published: Wednesday Mar 5 2008 10:24pm

Anyone who has followed NASCAR this decade is well aware of the fact that Jimmie Johnson is one of, if not the most prolific winner in the sport. In 222 career starts since 2001, Johnson has posted 33 career wins. No one has won more races in that time span. In addition, he has claimed that last two NASCAR Sprint Cup championships. Clearly, he is the safe pick to win the 2008 Sprint Cup title.

However, Johnson and the 48 team were way off their game last Sunday at Las Vegas. Let us quickly recap Johnson’s weekend in Vegas. He qualified 33rd, spent most of the race in the lower 30’s before posting a staggering 29th place finish.

Johnson finished 29th, so he must have had some kind of mechanical failure, or he must have hit the wall, right. No, Johnson’s car was a tortoise. Chad Knaus downright missed the setup. As a result, Johnson suffered his worst showing at Las Vegas. Now remember, Johnson won the three previous events at this racetrack. His uncharacteristic performance has led to speculation that he may be in for a maddening season.

Every driver eventually encounters a season of frustration. Dale Earnhardt went through it, and Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart have gone through it recently. Jimmie Johnson has yet to have a down year since his rookie season in 2002. If Sunday was any indication at all, then he may finally understand what it feels like to struggle at the Sprint Cup level.

Of course, this is all simply deductive reasoning. Every driver and team is bound to have an off day. Nevertheless, Johnson’s performance on Sunday looked like Jeff Gordon’s struggles on the 1.5-mile tracks in 2005. We all know that Gordon missed the Chase for the Championship that season. There were numerous bettors that missed the mark with Gordon that year. The upcoming race at Atlanta Motor Speedway will give us an accurate indication as to if Johnson is indeed off his game, or if last week was a fluke.

Jimmie Johnson fans and supporters, it is too early to fret, he is still an nascar odds-on (5-1) favorite to win the 2008 Sprint Cup championship. I fully anticipate that Chad Knaus and the rest of the 48 gang will figure out what went wrong and ensure that it does not happen again, or at least not frequently. Therefore, I would hold on to Johnson as a pick to win the championship for the time being. This team is extremely resilient. Furthermore, many skeptics have already forgotten that Johnson almost won the race at California the week before.

Johnson is currently fourteenth in the Sprint Cup championship standings, 148 points behind series leader Carl Edwards. He is only five points behind Kurt Busch who is 12th in the championship standings.

Carl Edwards will likely face a penalty that involves a subtraction in points. It seems that 100 points is NASCAR’s magic number when it comes to penalties. If Edwards is docked 100 points, he will fall from first to seventh in the Sprint Cup championship standings. His championship nascar nascar odds (6-1) would likely remain unchanged, as he would still be among the elusive top twelve. Edwards and the 99 team are the best in NASCAR Sprint Cup thus far.

For those of you that have A.J. Allmendinger penciled in to win the Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta, scratch that. Okay, whoever has Allmendinger picked to win must be selecting by way of alphabetical sequence. Anyway, Mike Skinner has temporarily replaced Allmendinger in the Red Bull Toyota as that team has yet to take the green flag in a championship points-paying race in 2008.