Worth The Wait For 48

The golf cart puttered through the misty, unseasonably cold night, rolling across the floodlit infield two hours after the checkered flag had signaled the end of the Daytona 500. Sitting in the back, holding a soon-to-be-drained bottle of champagne, Jimmie Johnson gently put his arm around his wife, Chandra. The two kissed--long and wet but sweet--and then JJ shared a confession with the third-wheel passenger crammed in beside them. "Chandra woke me up early this morning and told me she had a good feeling about the race," said Johnson. "I was like, man, it's too early for that!" � "I couldn't help it," said a smiling Chandra. "I never have good feelings. But hey, it's 48 in the 48th. I just knew." � Indeed, the 48th running of the Great American Race at the Daytona International Speedway belonged to the number 48 Lowe's Chevrolet piloted by the 30-year-old Johnson, who has been NASCAR's most consistent driver over the last three years.

Until Sunday night, however, he had lacked a signature win. For most of the 500, Johnson bided his time, content to run in spots five through 15 while cautiously avoiding the accidents that took out top contenders Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards, Jamie McMurray and Kurt Busch. Then, with 14 laps remaining on the 2.5-mile tri-oval , JJ made his move: He blew past his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Brian Vickers on the front straightaway to seize the lead. Over the next 13 laps Johnson unleashed the full power of his Hendrick engine while religiously hugging the low line. Heading into Turn 3 on the final lap of the race, Ryan Newman bolted to the outside and tried to pass. But Casey Mears, who was in third, didn't follow Newman to the outside, thus denying him the drafting help he desperately needed. Instead, Mears stayed with Johnson in the low groove, and the longtime buddies drafted one-two across the finish line.

"Do I help my friend who I've known since I was 12 years old, or do I go with Newman?" said Mears, who was a groomsman when the Johnsons were married 13 months ago. "I help my friend. He deserves the win."

The victory didn't come without controversy, however. On Feb. 12, after Johnson had roared through his two Daytona 500 qualifying laps to place fifth on the grid in Thursday's qualifying race, NASCAR officials discovered that his rear window had been raised sometime after the prequalifying inspection. NASCAR ruled that this gave Johnson an aerodynamic advantage and was blatant cheating. As punishment, Johnson's run was scratched from the books. (He started Thursday from the back of the field but still qualified for the ninth position on Sunday.) Moreover, his crew chief, Chad Knaus, had his credential revoked, and he was booted off track property. (As of Monday night NASCAR had yet to announce the length of his suspension for this violation.)

A serial rule bender, Knaus has been cited seven times in the last five years for flouting the rules. The 34-year-old Knaus blurs the line between innovative setups and outright cheating more than any other crew chief in the Cup garage, and several drivers strongly believe Knaus's most recent breach of the rules tainted Johnson's victory. "Three out of Jimmie's last four wins have had connections with the cars' being illegal," Newman said after the race. "It's not necessarily good for the sport."

Though Knaus was back home in Charlotte, he still exerted a powerful influence over the Lowe's team on Sunday. Using e-mail and his cellphone, Knaus was in frequent contact with Darian Grubb, the team's lead engineer, who replaced Knaus atop the pit box for the 500. On race morning Knaus even faxed Johnson some remarks he wanted to share with his crew in the team hauler before the green flag dropped. " Chad wanted me to stress that we all need to be patient and just do our jobs," says Johnson. "That's a theme for me this year. Maybe I wasn't patient enough in the past, and that's led to some of my problems. But tonight I was really, really relaxed. I let the race come to me. The championship is a long ways away, but we've got some great momentum going."

Four days before the engines were fired for the start of the 500, owner Rick Hendrick, a five-time Cup championship winner, was strolling though the Daytona garage when he bumped into an acquaintance. Asked how many of his four Cup drivers ( Johnson, Gordon, Vickers and Kyle Busch) would qualify for the season-ending Chase for the Championship, Hendrick's eyes lit up. He grabbed his questioner's arm and said, "I don't want to get ahead of myself, but this is as strong as my entire race team has ever been. From top to bottom, we've got talent everywhere. If all goes well, we can get all four of the cars into the Chase."

Though it will take 7 1/2 months for him to make good on that claim--only one of his cars, Johnson's, advanced to the 10-car Chase in '05--no team in NASCAR has been better than Hendrick Motorsports on the restrictor-plate tracks of Daytona and Talladega over the last two years. Hendrick's fleet of Chevys has won the last two Daytona 500s and five of the last eight races in which those thin strips of aluminum are inserted into the carburetors to restrict air flow and limit top speeds. Johnson was involved in wrecks in two of the four plate races in 2005, but the way he deftly--and calmly--avoided the carnage on Sunday bodes well for his championship hopes this season. Johnson finished second in the point standings in 2003 and '04, and fifth in '05, and over that span he's won more races (16) than any other driver, but he's fallen short of the title for three reasons: bad luck (he was knocked out of the title hunt last year by a flat tire in the final race, at Miami), bad timing (he finished 30th or worse eight times in '04, and three of them came in Chase races) and occasional bouts of bad driving (he ran into the back of Elliott Sadler last October at Talladega and triggered a massive wreck, causing JJ to lose his point lead in the Chase).

"I've been trying to learn from my mistakes," Johnson said on Sunday. "Today I really drove a much different plate race than I've driven before."

The same could be said of Dale Earnhardt Jr., the 2004 winner of the 500, who finished eighth on Sunday. Floundering in the middle of the pack late in this year's race, he radioed his crew chief, Tony Eury Jr., to complain that his engine wasn't strong enough to make a late charge. This was a common lament from Little E last season, when he finished a career-worst 19th in the point standings. But Eury, who is also Earnhardt's cousin, was adamant that Junior's car was good enough to finish in the top 10. "Let's go to the house," Eury Jr. yelled over the radio. "I'm looking forward to the rest of the season now."