Johnson, Gordon, HMS take home largest of hauls

While the NASCAR world lived the life of the hoi-polloi in New York City last week, gearing up to celebrate a season's worth of chills, spills and thrills, accountants were working overtime to determine the number of benjamins that needed to be shipped to the Waldorf-Astoria.

The final numbers are in, and the answer is ... a boatload, and then some.

Big payday

Jimmie Johnson collected his second consecutive Nextel Cup trophy and a check in excess of $7 million, the largest ever awarded in NASCAR.

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On what has to be NASCAR's richest night ever in New York, NASCAR's top-10 drivers took down nearly $85 million ($84.7, to be more precise) in prize money and point-fund checks in the Grand Ballroom at the venerable Park Avenue hotel.

Champion Jimmie Johnson's pay-outs totaled $15.3 million of that total. He doesn't get to keep it all, but he gets to keep enough to make all of us green with envy.

And that's a pay cut from last year, too. In 2006, Johnson earned a record $15,952,125, some $638,205 more than he earned this year, and he won 10 races in 2007. The difference? The Daytona 500, which pays the winner in excess of $1.5 million. Johnson won it in 2006, but not in 2007.

Going by what we've learned, we can factor a ballpark figure on what Johnson will take away from the 2007 season.

Most top drivers work for a salary plus a percentage of the purse. No idea what Johnson's salary is, but count on it being at least $2 million. The percentage of the purse the driver keeps is between 40 and 50 percent, in general, so we'll use 45 percent as a base.

Add another $3,440,889 to that total, making it in excess of $5.4 million. There's a percentage applied to the point fund as well, and bonuses and incentive clauses and whatnot. It's safe to say that Johnson walked out of the Waldorf with an eight-figure deposit ticket, easy.

There was an armored car out in front of the Waldorf during the Awards Banquet, as there has been for many years, and the part of it set aside for Johnson's coin was pretty substantial.

Add to that teammate Jeff Gordon's total haul on the night of $10.9 million, and there's a bunch of money headed home to Papa Joe Hendrick Drive in Concord, N.C.

If Gordon has a halfway decent year next season, he will become NASCAR's first $100 million man, as his 2007 total put his career earnings at $93,300,213.

Pulling out the handy calculator, Gordon has averaged $6.220 million for each one of his 15 full-time NASCAR seasons. His take this year for finishing second to Johnson was $10,926,687 -- exactly $46,930 more than he earned for winning the 2001 series title.

Johnson could be the only man to knock Gordon off the all-time money list's top spot. In six full-time seasons, Johnson has won $59.5 million, an average of $9.917 million per season.

Extrapolate that out, by the time Johnson gets to his 15th season, he would be in the neighborhood of $150 million in career earnings ($148.755 million, according to the calculator).

The big winner in this is team owner Rick Hendrick, who saw three of his four drivers pull down a combined $32,716,400 on the night. Hendrick gets to keep a lot of that money, and so does Gordon, who is co-owner of Johnson's car.

We haven't even talked about special awards yet. More than $1 million ($1,052,750, to be precise) was distributed to drivers in the top 10 in points. Gordon took home nearly half of that ($497,150) and Johnson pulled down an additional $350,000 for a total of $847,150.

These awards are the culmination of the season-long competitions like the Checkers/Rally's Double Drive-Thru Challenge and the WIX Filters Lap Leader Award, where companies keep track of certain things -- least time spent in the pits and number of times leading the most laps, in the case of the two awards just named, respectively -- and pay bonuses to the winners.

Certain awards, like the Goodyear Award and the Sunoco Diamond Performance Award, go to the champion from the series' official tire and fuel suppliers. The Goodyear trophy is unique in that it is a die-cast replica of the champion's car made of gold.

More than $32.8 million was distributed from the point fund this past Friday night, and how it all breaks down is way too complicated to explain here. Certain drivers, by participating in programs, can earn more money than drivers who don't, and by the end of the day, it's hard to keep track of who earned what.

Suffice it to say that next year's NASCAR Awards Banquet in New York might just require an additional armored car!