Where do you put him?

I don't follow NASCAR, so help me out - what do you credit Johnson's success to? Is it superior driving ability? Is it having the best produced car? Pit crew? What I'm getting at - is it more skill in the actual racing or is more the overall management of the team? I imagine you will say "both" - if so, which aspect is more important - skillfull driving or other factors?

 

I'm not the biggest NASCAR fan in the world. That said, I don't have Johnson in my top five. I think he will be someday, but he's not there right now. He's very close. I'll elaborate later.

Funny stuff about the Brad analogy

 

Why not possible?

 

On Jordan's 4th championship, there were still debates about his place among Jabar, Magic, and Chamberlain. Most people are properly appreciated when they are done and gone.

I say put him at #3 and let others prove me wrong. That is, IF he doesn't go into the wall on lap three or something...

 

Yes. Maybe I misread the question, but I thought we were talking where he is today, not where he might be or could be. Question seemed present tense. In my mind, for him to be in the top five, he'd have to have at least 60-70 overall wins and one more title. That would give him the second most titles of all time and in the top 7 I believe in wins. Then i think it's pretty much solid.

That said, it makes for an interesting question as to who is already in the top five, and who Johnson would supplant. Care to take a stab at that or will I be derailing the thread?

And let me throw this out: more than one friend of mine has long posited that were it not for the Chase, Johnson would not have won as many titles. I have yet to look it all up. But it begs the question: will this era be called the "Chase" era, and could it temper some accomplishments? Could the "dead tire" era do it? I don't argue this as being the case, but some folks more knowledgable about NASCAR than I have thrown out opinions stating such.

 

He's gotta win more races to be in the top 5. He will probably do this, but, you never know. Success can vanish very quickly in NASCAR.

When Earnhardt won his 7th championship, I thought he'd win 10, but it didn't happen.

After Gordon won his 4th, I thought 7 would be all but a certainty for him, but it didn't happen.

There are teams and drivers that could conceivably knock Johnson from his dominant perch, so we'll see.

Four championships is very impressive, but part of the greatness of Petty and Earnhardt was dominance over a long period of time. Over 10 years for each. That long-term dominance led to their high number of wins. While Johnson has dominated in championships in the last four years, Gordon also has as many championships and many more wins because Gordon was dominant for a while and won many races. I think, as impressive as four in a row is, Johnson has a ways to go and needs to win more races to get into the category of Gordon, Petty, and Earnhardt.

 

In many ways, this is akin to some baseball players who had some very stellar years, then dropped off the page. What if Jimmie does that? Or what if he doesn't really drop off the page, but doesn't really play a factor?

Thanks for this. I am now even less of a Chase fan than now. And my biggest reason was NASCAR wasn't totally honest about the reason. It wasn't that the race for the Cup wasn't competitive (sometimes it wasn't, but sometimes during the Chase it's not and it by no means ensures a competitive finish) but that it would increase viewership and interest in races in Sept and early Oct when the title was still not yet decided or not close to being clinched. Some fans were proabably like me. They tune out during football season and the end of baseball season. But they tune in when the title run gets close to being decided. More to the point, the Chase was in some respects invented to garner some new interest. You can't do that. You shouldn't make a 50 yard field goal worth 4.5 points in football because you think it might get you more fans.

Has it added some discussion? Yes. An element of excitement? Sure. But I'm not sold on the Chase as it presently stands.

Off topic, I know.

I'd probably bump DW slightly to put JJ in there. But I was a bigger Cale fan than DW

 

Think of the attention this season would be getting right now if there was no Chase. With 10 races to go (when the Chase started and before the points were re-set) Tony Stewart had a commanding lead. It would have been called insurmountable. Yet, by non-Chase scoring, JJ would have chased Tony down and would have passed him in points LAST SUNDAY. Think how riveting THAT would have been. Think how much perverse joy I would have gotten from watching a Stewart melt-down!

 

That does it..I officially hate the Chase :laugh:

 

This is like saying the Yankees would have been champions of baseball if there had been no playoffs for the years 2001-2008! If the driver is a champion, then he should show it by performing when it most counts!

You cannot just eliminate playoffs and call someone a champion in any other sport (besides college football, but that's another thread)!

The playoffs reveal the champion, not smother him. The best driver beats the best drivers. Period (in case you didn't see it).

IMHO

 

I think it could. That said, I wasn't referring to the steroid era. Lew Burdette comes to mind immediately. Guys like Dale Murphy and the like.

So if the question becomes "Today, where is Jimmie Johnson all time?" I too would probably have him just inside my top ten.

I don't think this is directly analogus to the NFL playoffs, MLB, etc. The Yankees don't have to play the Royals and Reds in the playoffs. The Colts won't have to play the Lions. The Grizzlies won't be in the playoffs. Driver #30 in the standings is in the playoffs. An apples=apples would be the MLB arbitrarily calling an end to the Reg Season Aug 31, and then from there having the top four teams in each league finish their schedule and the best teams after the end of all that are winners of their respective divisions. It doesn't take enough of the whole body of work into account. For NASCAR to have a Chase equal to other sports, only the top 12 drivers would be competing against each other.

That said, I get your point. If Jeff or Mark or whomever wanted to be the champion, they should've done what Jimmie Johnson had done the last three, now four, seasons. It's like saying the College football teams aren't really national champions because they didn't factor in the bowls (back in the years when the NC was crowned prior to the bowls) or something like that. Or that the MLB WS winner might not be the real champ because the second best team in their league didn't get to the playoffs because of divisional alignments.

 

Johnson really is in a unique position historically because of the Chase and it is hard to compare him to other drivers. All drivers who have 3 championships or more are drivers who have many victories. Petty, Earnhardt, Pearson, Waltrip, Yarborough, Lee Petty, Gordon...can't think of any other multiple championship drivers off the top of my head. All those guys would have to be in anybody's top ten.

Then there are a host of drivers who won many races, but no championship. Jr. Johnson, Fireball Roberts, Bill Elliott, Mark Martin. As well there are drivers who have one championship and lots of victories: Rusty Wallace and Bobby Allison come to mind.

I tend to put more weight on winning races than I do on winning championships. If I were a driver, I would rather do what Bill Elliot did in 1985 (win 10 major races and the Triple Crown) than what DW did that year; win the championship.

By that measure, I would tend to put guys who have more race victories ahead of JJ. Again, his career is not over and he will almost certainly put more wins on the board, but at this point, I would rank him behind some of the other drivers who have won more races.

 

I'm pointing to where you said 'the real winners of [such-and-such years] are:'

You can't say that the 'real' winners are one thing when a 'playoff' of sorts has proven otherwise not once, nor twice, but several times now.

BTW. I rarely chastise or even get sarcastic. My sense of humor is subtle (i am told).