Cale might have beaten Johnson at his own game

He served his time as a bridesmaid, coming oh-so-close several years in a row, to the point where folks wondered if he could ever close the deal. He broke through not a little at a time but all at once, unleashing a head-spinning and somewhat unforeseen era of dominance that catapulted him to the highest levels of his sport. He closed each of his championship campaigns with a devastating finishing kick, distancing himself from the field with such authority that his fellow competitors were left awestruck in his wake.

And his name was not Jimmie Johnson. Oh, sure, the two-time defending Cup Series champion displays all those traits, to the point where he's on the cusp of capturing NASCAR's biggest prize for a third consecutive year. He is a machine built for the Chase, those final 10 races where a driver has to be able to flip the switch and go, that time of year when winning leaves opponents not only beaten but demoralized. He is the perfect driver with the perfect team at the perfect point in history, playing the system perfectly.

But he didn't have to go through Cale Yarborough to do it. How fitting it is that Yarborough, that bulldog of a man from South Carolina cotton country, whose 30-year-old mark of three consecutive championships is now only weeks away from being equaled, just might have been the one person best suited to beat Johnson at his own game.

"The only thing I can say," said Yarborough, now 69 and retired to his 4,000-acre plantation in Sardis, S.C., "is Jimmie better be glad I'm not racing with him today."

They seem such diametric opposites, one a rough-and-tumble former Golden Gloves boxer and Clemson football recruit, the other a savvy dirt biker and career climber who exudes California cool. Yarborough was a central figure in the most famous fight in NASCAR history, his infield donnybrook with Bobby and Donnie Allison after the 1979 Daytona 500. Johnson's biggest scrape came when he was flung from the top of a moving golf cart. Yet as a youth Johnson idolized Yarborough to such an extent that when he saw his first Hardee's on a cross-country road trip, he ran inside looking for Cale. The hamburger chain sponsored Yarborough's Chevrolet at the time, and Johnson thought he had stumbled luckily upon the race shop.

Even today, they don't know one another all that well. They've met casually, but Johnson is champion of an always-on-the-go race circuit, and Yarborough, aside from checking in on his Florence, S.C., automobile dealership a couple of mornings each week, basically keeps to himself. But there's clearly a connection there, one that goes beyond perhaps being the only two men to three-peat on NASCAR's premier circuit. In their respective eras, few have been better at closing the deal. Johnson and Yarborough didn't just win championships, they slammed the door on any and all challengers with convincing performances down the stretch. They may hail from different generations and different coasts, but Johnson and Yarborough are of a similar mind when it comes to locking down titles. They make sure the competition doesn't have a chance.

"I've watched Jimmie," Yarborough said. "He's the kind of driver that likes to run up front. That's the way I drove. I can see a lot of Jimmie in me." (Continued)