Fourth titles notable for more than just the number

Much has been made, and rightly so, of the record. It stood for nearly three decades, owned solely by one simple, private man who lived on a South Carolina plantation, and as the years passed it came to be seen as unbreakable. And then came this unknown from Southern California, this former dirt biker and off-road racer, who attacked his sport with a surgical precision and an unflappable cool. Cale Yarborough and Jimmie Johnson stand side-by-side in history, the only drivers to win three consecutive championships on NASCAR's premier division, but only for a few more days.

Sunday, that all changes. Barring an unforeseen and uncharacteristic collapse, Johnson will become the first driver to claim four consecutive crowns on what is now known as the Sprint Cup circuit. The evening at Homestead-Miami Speedway will be capped with the now-familiar sight of No. 48 team members holding up index fingers and spraying champagne. Johnson will move into a chapter of his own writing, as his four consecutive championships -- and counting, given that he'll be favored to win another next year -- take their rightful place among the greatest accomplishments the sport has ever seen.

But the record is only part of it. Four championships put Johnson in elite company, and would do so even if they had not come one after the other. At NASCAR's highest level, it's a plateau only three other men have reached. Even the numeral itself carries a great deal of significance; in some cultures the number four is a symbol of wholeness and completion, something that seems all too appropriate in this case. There are four seasons, four directions, four elements, four sides to a square.

And soon, for Johnson, there will be four championships. In one way he stands alone, but in another he has company. For in NASCAR, fourth titles have proven noteworthy for reasons other than just the number. Richard Petty's fourth championship season in 1972 ushered in the era of national sponsorship. Dale Earnhardt's fourth title in 1990 came amid one of the most gut-wrenching championship races the old points system ever produced. Jeff Gordon's fourth title in 2001 proved that he could stand on his own.

Now here comes Johnson, with his four-in-a-row record-breaker, ready to join an exclusive club. But he's not the charter member, mind you. As far as four championships are concerned, there are those who came before him -- drivers who may not have won their titles consecutively, but whose quartet of crowns set the bar equally as high. And it all begins with a snowy day in Chicago, a $250,000 handshake, and the man they call the King.

STP's sponsorship of Richard Petty's No. 43 changed the sport forever.

Day-glow red and Petty blue

Richard Petty had to make a detour. He was on his way to Riverside International Raceway, the Southern California road course, to open the 1972 season. His brother Maurice and his crew chief Dale Inman were with him. But first, they had to make a stop in Chicago to tend to a little business.

Prior to the final race of the previous season, in which Petty had won his third NASCAR championship, he had been approached by the man known as Mr. 500 -- Andy Granatelli, the chairman of the STP fuel- and oil-additive empire. Telephone calls followed during the short offseason. It was the beginning of a blockbuster deal, the first true national car sponsorship, a union of a driver and a company each synonymous with auto racing in their own way.

But the agreement was slow in coming together. Petty Enterprises had already dispatched its car for Riverside and the 1972 season opener. Petty and his entourage followed it, but first made a pit stop in Chicago to meet with Granatelli. "Biggest damn office I've ever seen in my life," Inman recalled. STP's products were all on display and signs warned against smoking. The weather outside was cold and snowy. But the reception Petty and company received was a warm one.

1972 Cup Standings

Pos.	Driver	Points	Wins	T-5	T-10
1.	Richard Petty	8,701	8	25	28
2.	Bobby Allison	8,573	10	25	27
3.	James Hylton	8,158	1	9	23
4.	Cecil Gordon	7,326	0	4	16
5.	Benny Parsons	6,844	0	10	19
6.	Walter Ballard	6,781	0	0	7
7.	Elmo Langley	6,656	0	1	9
8.	John Sears	6,298	0	2	7
9.	Dean Dalton	6,295	0	0	4
10.	Ben Arnold	6,179	0	0	7

"Right off," Inman said, "I knew they were going to make the deal work."

There were stumbling blocks. Granatelli didn't like the presence of accessory decals on the front fender. The Pettys didn't want to wear STP's standard white coveralls as uniforms. They seemed to have everything ironed out, and were on the verge of a deal when Granatelli pointed out that, of course, the car would have to be day-glow red, the color of STP's products. Petty, whose family cars had always been blue, balked at the idea.

"He was dead serious," Petty remembered. "All his cars had been day-glow red. We sat down to cut the deal, a $250,000 deal. We got up, I thought deal was done. He said, 'You know the car will be painted red?' I said, 'No way. My cars have always been blue. It's going to be blue.' I made it about halfway to the door. I was just as stubborn as he was. We didn't have any sponsor, so I don't know why I was quite that stubborn. We needed the money. He said, 'OK, we'll try to work this out.'"

Petty sent Inman and his brother on to Riverside to prepare the car and take it through inspection. Snow twice delayed their flight -- they flew commercial back then -- but eventually, they made it out. Petty stayed behind, and over talks with STP executives finally hit on the idea of a two-tone car: red on the sides, blue on top. Granatelli offered another $50,000 if Petty would paint the entire car red, but the King declined. Then it was off to Los Angeles, where the Pettys held a news conference to announce the agreement. At the same time, STP racing director Ralph Salvino placed the company's familiar logo on the back quarterpanel of the No. 43 car.

Some open-wheel drivers, at Riverside for the road-course event, warned the Pettys that STP would try to interfere with their operation. Inman said that never happened, and that the company was always supportive. The deal lasted for 35 years, and opened the door to national sponsorship for a sport just beginning to break out of its regional box.

Petty won that first race at Riverside, and went on to win seven more to easily outdistance Bobby Allison and James Hylton for his fourth title. It was a groundbreaking season, the beginning of the sport's modern era -- the number of races had been reduced to 31 from 38 the year before, NASCAR founder Bill France turned control of the series over to his son, and R.J. Reynolds came on board as title sponsor. It ended with Petty again as champion, this time driving a car with a national sponsor on the side, a harbinger of things to come.

"You didn't know it was the start of a trend," Petty said. "You weren't looking at the overall picture, you were looking at your little side of the world. You were just looking at Petty Enterprises, how do we get Petty Enterprises going and how do we improve it. We'd always kept it going out of my mother's pocketbook. If we had a little bit extra, we could do a little bit more."

Dale Earnhardt had nine wins in his 1990 championship season.

Heartache to celebration

Everybody remembers the tire, that shredded circle of rubber that sits like a relic inside the Richard Childress Racing museum in Welcome, N.C. Think of Dale Earnhardt's 1990 season, and that's what immediately comes to mind -- the big lead, the cut tire, and Derrike Cope speeding by to overtake the Intimidator on the final lap of the Daytona 500.

How long did it take to get over that? "I'm still working on it," said Kirk Shelmerdine, Earnhardt's crew chief that season. He's only half joking. Shelmerdine can recall the painful details as if the event had unfolded yesterday.

"That was big. We had a 40-second lead on second place. It was unheard of. We were 10 seconds from lapping the field, and some things happened and the caution came out and it went down from there. Had there not been a caution toward the end of the race, we still could have blown a tire and won the race easy. It just didn't go well right at the end. Despite having a perfect week and a perfect winter as far as preparing for the race, it all went to heck in the last little bit. That was hard to take."

It was only the beginning of what would become the most stomach-turning championship run of Earnhardt's career, a season full of incredible highs and devastating lows and featuring a tremendous comeback at the end. And yet, car owner Richard Childress' favorite memory of that season is of a test Earnhardt conducted at Atlanta. It was supposed to be a four-day session, and Mark Martin, whom Earnhardt would ultimately race for the championship, was there at the same time.

1990 Cup Standings

Pos.	Driver	Points	Wins	T-5	T-10
1.	Dale Earnhardt	4,430	9	18	23
2.	Mark Martin	4,404	3	16	23
3.	Geoffrey Bodine	4,017	3	11	19
4.	Bill Elliott	3,999	1	12	16
5.	Morgan Shepherd	3,689	1	7	16
6.	Rusty Wallace	3,676	2	9	16
7.	Ricky Rudd	3,601	1	8	15
8.	Alan Kulwicki	3,599	1	5	13
9.	Ernie Irvan	3,593	1	6	13
10.	Ken Schrader	3,572	0	7	14

• Complete Standings

"We went there and put on left-side tires and hauled ass about a half a second faster than everybody else," Childress remembers with a wide smile. "And then we packed up and went hunting while they stayed there for four days to test. I think we had them tore up, we went so fast."

It was the Earnhardt camp that was torn up after the Daytona 500 loss. A third of the way through the season after three consecutive finishes of 30th or worse, Earnhardt found himself in fourth place, 136 points behind Martin. Shelmerdine remembers that as a trying time; the No. 3 car wasn't as dominant as it had been in the 1980s, and even in Earnhardt's championship years, getting the car right could be a struggle. But in mid-summer they hit on something, and unleashed a streak of 12 consecutive finishes of eighth or better, a stretch that included five wins. With two races left, the deficit was down to 45 points.

"We just knew we had to go out and try to win every race," Childress said. "The thing you have to do when running for championships is, do at the end of the year what got you there. If going out every race going for wins got you where you're at, or consistency got you where you're at, just don't change your game plan."

They went to Phoenix, a track that historically had been better for Martin -- but not on Nov. 4, 1990. In what has to rank among the most clutch victories the Intimidator ever recorded, Earnhardt led 262 of 312 laps to dominate the event. He finished first, Martin was 10th, and the No. 3 team went to the finale at Atlanta up by six points.

"The Phoenix race was the turnaround point for us in that season," Shelmerdine said. "We were behind, and we won at Phoenix to get the lead. It certainly wasn't by much and it certainly wasn't over, but it was a very big moral and psychological victory for us. Atlanta was a super track for us, one of Earnhardt's better tracks. We were really hard to beat us there. I think everybody knew whoever got the lead going into that race was going to be hard to pass. They really wanted to keep the margin they had, and they didn't do it. We probably did more celebrating at Phoenix than we did at Atlanta the next week."

At Atlanta, Earnhardt finished third, while Martin was sixth. The final championship margin was 26 points -- not as close as the legendary 1992 title chase between Alan Kulwicki, Davey Allison and Bill Elliott, but in some ways equally as dramatic. For Martin, who had incurred a 46-point penalty for an illegal carburetor spacer plate after a win at Richmond in February, the defeat still stings.

"We led from May until the next-to-last race, and I thought I could beat Earnhardt," Martin said. "And as it turned out, I was wrong. And that was the one that I wanted to win, and probably the most of all, when I was young and when it looked like we were going to."

Jeff Gordon's 2001 title with Robbie Loomis is his only one without the help of Ray Evernham.

The 'sweetest' one

They seemed inseparable -- the wizard mechanic and the whiz-kid driver, the mentor and the protégé. Not since the days of Dale Inman and Richard Petty had a crew chief and a driver appeared so perfectly suited for one another than Ray Evernham and Jeff Gordon, who together won 47 races and three championships and fronted the most dominant team of the era.

And yet, like so many relationships in NASCAR, fractures inevitably began to show. Evernham and Gordon won back-to-back titles in 1997 and' 98, but the next year they were butting heads. Gordon wasn't a young driver anymore, and he had a better feel for what he wanted, and he didn't as readily defer to Evernham's ways. At season's end, Evernham would leave to form his own race team, and spearhead Dodge's return to NASCAR's premier series.

His successor was Robbie Loomis, who had won three races in nine years as crew chief for a Petty Enterprises outfit that had fallen behind the times. His inaugural campaign with the No. 24 car fueled the argument that Gordon could not win a title without Evernham's help; Gordon won only three times, his lowest output since his second full-time season, and finished a distant ninth in final points.

"Oh, yeah, we were pretty disappointed in our performance in 2000," Gordon remembered. "But I felt like it was a great inspiration and motivator for us to improve and come back stronger. You know, when you're at Hendrick Motorsports, you know that the resources are there. It's just making sure that you make the most of them. A lot of it is people. Some of it is setup. Sometimes you hit on some things that work. Most of the time it's the people, the teamwork that's put into it, that makes it different."

2001 Cup Standings

Pos.	Driver	Points	Wins	T-5	T-10
1.	Jeff Gordon	5,112	6	18	24
2.	Tony Stewart	4,763	3	15	22
3.	Sterling Marlin	4,741	2	12	20
4.	Ricky Rudd	4,706	2	14	22
5.	Dale Jarrett	4,612	4	12	19
6.	Bobby Labonte	4,561	2	9	20
7.	Rusty Wallace	4,481	1	8	14
8.	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	4,460	3	9	15
9.	Kevin Harvick	4,406	2	6	16
10.	Jeff Burton	4,394	2	8	16

• Complete Standings

As the 2001 season dawned, the pressure was on. The start was inauspicious -- a crash in the Daytona 500, and an engine failure four weeks later at Darlington. Early on, everyone was chasing reigning champion Dale Jarrett. Gordon pulled into a tie for the lead at midseason, and then something clicked. The No. 24 car ran off seven consecutive finishes of eighth or better, and suddenly Gordon was up by 342 points.

"We finished up pretty strong there," Loomis said. "The last three-fourths of the season, we got on some things that were pretty good. These [current Sprint Cup] cars are a lot more challenging, but when you get something figured out, usually it will work for a four- or six-week span. If you hit it at the right time, you're great."

Gordon was great enough to clinch his fourth title in the season's penultimate event at Atlanta; the fall race at New Hampshire had been moved to the season finale because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. For Gordon, who had fully escaped Evernham's shadow, it was a very personal victory.

"Definitely," he said. "Not to anybody other than myself, you know. But, absolutely. I mean, what we did together was phenomenal, to win the three, even [finish] second the other year. We had a great relationship, had a great team. Opportunities came up for both of us. We went our separate ways to take advantage of those. I would say for him it was huge. For him to start his own team and be successful, even though he never won a championship, I still think he takes a lot of pride and earned a lot of respect by doing that, just like what we did by winning the championship in '01."

It was a validation not only for Gordon, but Loomis as well. "I'm sure it was a lot bigger for me, probably, it being my first one," the former crew chief said. "But I think they all mean something to you in all kinds of different ways. I think probably what I'll remember for Jeff, it meant a lot to him because he kind of did it what he called his way. He was kind of developing into his own man, his own driver."

Now it is Johnson's turn to reach that same plateau. The mechanics of winning a championship do not change -- same stage, same trophy, same orchestrated celebration at the same palm-fringed speedway. It would seem easy for them to all run together. Gordon, though, said that's not the case. The circumstances surrounding his fourth title make it stand foremost in his mind. Johnson, he believes, will feel the same way once this season is complete. After all, in some cultures, four is seen as a number of representing perfection.

"To me, the fourth meant so much because we had so many changes within the team. When Ray went off to do his team, we had to replace him. That was a big challenge for us and for me personally. To be able to come back from all of that and win with Robbie Loomis in 2001, I think that was one of my biggest accomplishments that I've had in this sport. I feel like it certainly earned me a lot more respect," Gordon said.

"So I look back on the fourth one as being the sweetest one because of that. But they do all seem to get better for different reasons. I think, especially this season for Jimmie, going for four in a row, something that's never been done before. That, I'm sure, would make this one sweeter than all the rest for him."