Want to 'Jimmie-proof' Chase? Here's how to do it

Take some rope, and tie a few cinder blocks to the rear wing of his No. 48 car. That ought to throw off the balance a little. Spray-paint over the visor on his helmet, which might make him miss his mark as he rolls into Turn 2. Send in the kids from Six Pack to steal his carburetor. Replace his next set of Goodyears with those little spare doughnut tires that you're only supposed to use to get yourself to a gas station in case of an emergency. Hey, desperate times call for desperate measures, right? Such underhanded tactics might be the only way to keep Jimmie Johnson from running away like he did in Charlotte on Saturday night.

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And even that might not be enough. Johnson has a 90-point lead, the biggest ever in the Chase at this point, heading into Sunday's event at Martinsville Speedway, his best track. He's become the first driver to win three of the first five Chase races, and will be the odds-on favorite to win four of the first six. Barring an uncharacteristic failure, a freak accident, or an intervention on the part of the Almighty, Johnson will be hoisting that big silver trophy for the fourth consecutive year when the Cup season concludes Nov. 22 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, given that Johnson really is a friendly guy of humble origins who from a NASCAR driver standpoint has truly redefined what it means to work hard. This series is going to look a lot different post-Jimmie than it did pre-Jimmie, and his emphasis on work ethic, conditioning and professionalism will have a lot to do with that. And yet, there are fans for whom his domination holds all the appeal of a glacier grinding against a rock. There are other competitors inevitably sick of seeing him win. There are people who wish there was some way of tweaking the playing field so yet another Johnson championship doesn't seem like such a foregone conclusion.

There may be, and it has nothing to do with point systems or inspection crackdowns. It's really much simpler than that. For all he's accomplished, even Johnson will admit that the Chase schedule plays to his strengths. Now, obviously this is a team that is a threat to win anywhere, at anytime. They're always well-prepared, they have unparalleled quality control, and they simply do not make mistakes. But clearly, most of Johnson's better tracks lie inside the final 10. You really want to put him to the test? You really want to change the Chase to put him at an inherent disadvantage rather than an advantage? There's one way to do it.

Jimmie-proof it.

We've seen this kind of thing before. Once Tiger Woods began racking up major after major, golf courses started pushing back tee boxes, planting more trees, narrowing fairways, and doing whatever else they could to try and negate his tremendous length. For instance, Augusta National, home of the Masters, is 450 yards longer today than it was seven years ago. The process came to be known as Tiger-proofing, and it brought some unintended consequences; shorter hitters, interestingly enough, were penalized the most, while courses became so difficult that some Sunday afternoons lacked drama. Still, it was all done with one goal in mind -- make it more difficult for the world's No. 1 player to win.

In a similar vein, can the Chase be Jimmie-proofed? Perhaps. As it stands now, you'd think the Chase tracks had been hand-selected by Johnson himself. Statistically, seven venues in the playoff rank in his personal top 10, beginning with Martinsville, where he has as many victories (six) and a better average finish (5.3) than anywhere else on tour. Phoenix (two wins, 5.4) stands second, with Auto Club Speedway (four wins, 5.8) third. Texas (one win, 8.5) is statistically his sixth-best track, Charlotte (six wins, 8.6) his seventh, New Hampshire (two wins, 9.5) his eighth. Dover (five wins, 9.8) rounds out his top 10.

That's a career average finish of better than 10th at seven of the 10 Chase tracks. Jeff Gordon, by comparison, has a top-10 average finish at only three -- Kansas, Martinsville, and Homestead. Mark Martin has averaged a top-10 at only one Chase track, Phoenix. Stunningly, Tony Stewart has no Chase tracks at which he's averaged better than 10th (although he comes close at Phoenix, where he's a 10.1). Granted, Johnson hasn't been racing in NASCAR as long as those other drivers, and a greater number of starts will drag down average finish as a matter of course. But it's also clear that Johnson's rivals often fare better on the kind of tracks the Cup tour usually visits in the summertime, and are nowhere to be seen in the Chase.

Armed with that knowledge, here's what a Jimmie-proofed Chase might look like:

Jimmie Johnson has one DNF at Richmond with seven finishes of 20th or worse.

1. Richmond -- Congratulations, Richmond. You've been promoted from regular-season cut-off race to Chase opener. Don't like it? Too bad. Because statistically, of all the active tracks on the Cup tour, you're Johnson's worst. Yes, he's won there three times, but his average finish in Richmond is an un-Johnson-like 18.2, and he's finished a lap down there in half of his 16 career starts.

2. Michigan -- Johnson has never won in 16 starts at Michigan, which is rather strange given his success on the nearly identical 2-mile oval in Fontana, Calif. Shoot, he's only cracked the top-five there twice. The Brooklyn track is also a place where Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus have had trouble figuring out fuel mileage, as evidenced by their shortcomings there earlier this season. Oh, and Michigan in mid-September can't be any colder than Charlotte was last week.

3. Bristol -- Ask Johnson which track frustrates him the most, and he'll likely tell you the half-mile oval in East Tennessee. Bristol is another place where Johnson has never won, and where he's only finished on the lead lap half the time. His average finish there is 15.9. A Chase berth would also likely help Bristol, too, given that the racing has grown a little overly cautious there in its current late August date.

4. Sonoma -- Johnson has never won on a road course, and Sonoma gets the nod here for two reasons. First, the weather in early fall is better in Northern California wine country than it is in Watkins Glen, N.Y. And second, Johnson has a tougher time on the Infineon layout, with an average finish of 17.4 there compared to 13 at Watkins Glen. And besides, we need a road course in the Chase, don't we?

The No. 48 has six DNFs at Talladega in 15 starts with Jimmie Johnson behind the wheel.

5. Kansas -- Actually, Johnson is pretty good at Kansas, with one win there and an average finish of 10.2. Statistically, it's his 11th-best track. But he's far from automatic there, with a handful of mediocre (by Johnsonian standards) runs mixed in with a pair of top-fives. His ninth-place result there earlier in the month stands as his worst finish in this season's Chase.

6. Talladega -- Big, bad Talladega has bedeviled everyone on the Cup tour at one time or another, and Johnson is no exception. Johnson's victory there in 2006 is the high point in a rather checkered history which has also seen three engine failures, three crashes, and an average finish of 17.7. Despite all he's accomplished, not even Johnson is immune to the whims of the Big One.

7. Las Vegas -- Congratulations, Bruton. You have your second race in the desert. And you've got it because Johnson and Knaus have struggled at Las Vegas since the place was resurfaced and the current Cup car was implemented. Yes, Johnson won three consecutive there from 2005-07. But the last two years, they've placed 29th and 24th. No less than Rick Hendrick called that 2008 effort, in which Johnson finished two laps down, the worst race in the history of the No. 48 car. Clearly, they still have work to do there.

8. Texas -- As mentioned earlier, Johnson is pretty good at Texas, statistically his sixth-best track. But you try finding 10 places where the No. 48 team struggles. Not easy. Regardless, Johnson has won just once in Fort Worth -- and his team's missed setup there in 2008 nearly let Carl Edwards back in the championship hunt. Also, in 12 career races there, he's led only 78 laps. Of course, all he has to lead is the right one.

There are only six tracks on the Cup schedule where Jimmie Johnson is still searching for his first victory.

9. Rockingham -- Call up Andy Hillenburg -- we're going back to the Rock. Why? Because of all the premier-series tracks Johnson has competed on in his NASCAR career, North Carolina Speedway has proved statistically his most difficult. His average finish there is 23.2. OK, so maybe Johnson only raced five times in Rockingham, and maybe the track was moved off the NASCAR schedule before the soon-to-be three-time champ really hit his stride. But every little bit helps, right?

10. Homestead -- End the Chase in the same place it closes now, on a track where Johnson has never won, and has an average finish of 13.6. He's also led only 43 laps in eight career starts at Homestead, although that likely stems from the fact that Johnson is busy trying to wrap up titles in the season finale, and not necessarily going for the victory.

Now, would that kind of Chase prevent Johnson from winning the title? Not necessarily, given how well his team prepares and how rarely they suffer setbacks. But would it remove the advantage Johnson currently has with so many of his better tracks in the thick of the championship run? Absolutely. Would it make winning a championship more challenging than it is now? No question.

But there are no guarantees. Given enough time, Johnson and Knaus, the two very best at what they do today, could very well run that gauntlet as effortlessly as they cut through the Chase today. Remember, Woods continues to win major golf tournaments even though Tiger-proofing has been stretched to its maximum. So maybe we should still tie those cinder blocks to the back of the No. 48 car, just in case.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.