With three titles, no telling how far Johnson can go

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- By now, they could do everything by heart -- crowding upon the big stage parked along the start-finish line at Homestead-Miami Speedway, raising the sterling silver trophy amid a storm of fireworks, flashbulbs and confetti, hoisting a banner bearing their car number to the top of a flagpole silhouetted against the South Florida night. Jimmie Johnson and his Hendrick Motorsports team have proven so adept at winning championships on NASCAR's premier series, that the practice of celebration must be engrained deep in their muscle memory.

The familiar routine unfolded once again Sunday, when Johnson finished 15th in the Sprint Cup season finale to claim his third consecutive series championship by 69 points over Carl Edwards. He's tied Cale Yarborough, the old bulldog of a driver from South Carolina, and the only other man in the 60-year history of NASCAR to accomplish the feat. His car owner and teammate, four-time champion Jeff Gordon, is up next. And from there, the targets only get bigger.

Jimmie Johnson is 33, and at his competitive peak. He has three championships in seven full seasons on the Cup circuit. He's never finished lower than fifth in the standings. He's backed by a team that's won eight titles in the past 13 seasons, and a crew chief with a reputation as the most imaginative in the garage area. As things stand today, with the brake dust still settling over the swamps and palmetto nurseries of this Everglades outpost, there's no reason to believe that a once-unheralded driver who sprung from desert buggies and off-road trucks can't challenge the most mythical record in NASCAR, and perhaps take his place alongside the Intimidator and the King.

"Oh, God. Don't start with that," moaned Gordon, who heard such talk himself after winning his fourth title in 2001. "As soon as you start chiming about that to them, like you did me, that's when it's all going to end."

Yet after Sunday, only three drivers have won more championships than Johnson -- Gordon, with four, and Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt, with seven each. With Petty's mark of 200 career race victories rendered untouchable by the limitations of the current Sprint Cup schedule, seven titles stands as the one seemingly obtainable mark for stratospheric greatness. Only two men have ever achieved it. But with frightening ease, Johnson has just taken co-ownership of a record previously held by one man, in the process doing something that neither Earnhardt nor Petty could ever do.

"You think about the New York Yankees, you think about championships. And when you think about Jimmie Johnson's name, you have to think about championships," former series champ Dale Jarrett said. "I mean, he's never finished out of the top five. It's just amazing what he's accomplished in a short period of time here. Everybody wants to make the comparisons to the different eras and what Cale did. I think more than comparing it to what Cale did, let's look at the people in our sport that we consider the greatest, and that's Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt with seven championships, and neither one of them ever won three in a row. It's pretty amazing what Jimmie and his team have accomplished here, and we need to give credit where credit is due and deserved." (Continued)