Jimmie Johnson

Mark Martin is probably the sentimental favorite to win NASCAR's Sprint Cup championship. The hard-truth favorite? Still Jimmie Johnson. His team is so good, especially at Phoenix, that the odds of a historic fourth consecutive championship are still quite good. Johnson leads Martin by 73 points, which means Martin can catch him after this weekend. But even if Martin wins the race, there's no guarantee that will happen. Remember the face Carl Edwards made in Atlanta last year when, after winning the race, he learned Johnson, who struggled all day, finished second?

Something both extraordinary and perfectly ordinary for the last five years happened during NASCAR's last two races. Jimmie Johnson won back-to-back and erased all questions about his team's ability. He thrust himself out of a supposed slump with his first victory on Infineon Raceway's road course and another triumph last weekend in Loudon, N.H. Just like that, Johnson has five victories and is tied with Denny Hamlin for the Chase bonus-point lead. Once again Johnson, even though he doesn't lead the points standings, is the favorite in the Sprint Cup series.

It will take some time for the magnitude of what Jimmie Johnson and the No. 48 team accomplished at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday to sink in for the men who made it happen. But Johnson knows it's big. Johnson, 34, won an unprecedented fourth consecutive championship. He joined Jeff Gordon, Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt Sr. as the only drivers to win at least four championships and broke a tie with Cale Yarborough, who won three consecutive championships. Johnson won seven races in 2009.

Jimmy Johnson, from time to time, has made it next to impossible to be a fan of his.There were the stories when he was at Oklahoma State (e.g. Dexter Manley and NCAA troubles). And at Miami, too, when schools were dropping the Hurricanes off their schedule because of the actions of Jimmy's fatigue-clad "dirty dozens."He won football games and went to bowls, though, lots of 'em and he also constructed champions. Bottom line: The guy coaches very well.At any level, too, because they laughed when he got the Dallas Cowboys' job and the old coaching heads of the NFL had to lapse into giggling fits after his Dallas team won just one of 16 games that first season.

It took only one word for Mark Martin to explain his humility, his pessimism at times and his tendency to insist he's not really that good. "Experience," Martin said, calmly and quietly, shortly before NASCAR's Chase for the Cup began. Martin and teammate Jeff Gordon received a gift Sunday when another teammate, Jimmie Johnson , crashed on the third lap at Texas Motor Speedway. Having entered the race with a 184-point deficit, Martin goes to Phoenix this weekend just 73 points behind leader Johnson.

Drivers Kurt Busch and Jimmie Johnson know there is something precious waiting for the man leading the NASCAR Nextel Cup points race at the end of the season in three weeks. But their outlooks are totally different - as different as the drivers' reputations. "I hope if we're going to lead [the standings], I hope it doesn't come till the very end," said Johnson, who is on a three-race winning streak and is second in points in the Chase for the Nextel Cup. "There is pressure that comes with leading.

DOVER, Del. - - After routing the field to win NASCAR's spring race at Dover International Speedway, Jimmie Johnson returned for Sunday's 400-mile event on the one-mile, concrete oval in a different Chevrolet that his crew chief believed was even stronger. Chad Knaus miscalculated a bit, it turns out, but the upshot was the same. Johnson trounced all comers Sunday to complete a sweep of NASCAR's two Dover races and pare his deficit to teammate Mark Martin, who finished second, in pursuit of what would be a record fourth consecutive Sprint Cup championship.

DAVIE, Fla. -- In the summer of his rejuvenation, Jimmy Johnson was forever sending concise and, more often than not, caustic messages to the Miami Dolphins.To fat, indolent tight end Eric Green, he sent the message slothfulness won't make it at Camp Jimmy. Green, a two-time Pro Bowl player who missed 39 practices last season, was cut before training camp.To borderline veterans Keith Byars and Gene Atkins, he issued a message of fiscal prudence. Both were forced to swallow huge pay cuts after testing the market.

Nextel Cup driver Jimmie Johnson hadn't seen Victory Lane in 16 races. And yesterday, when it was just about in sight, he looked in his rearview mirror and saw his young, eager teammate Kyle Busch. Johnson would, eventually, win the race in overtime, beating Busch to the finish by 0.080 of a second in the MBNA RacePoints 400, but it wasn't the easy kind of victory he might have expected had this been a race in the good old days of just 10 or so years ago. In those days, there would have been no doubt.

Good morning -- Jimmie Johnson -- Congratulations on your back-to-back Nextel Cup titles. Just try not to speed home from your celebration.