JJ's delayed coronation, IndyCar gets new duds, more Texas notes

Just when it looked like next weekend's trip to Phoenix could be billed as NASCAR's Championship Weekend, which would have made the season-finale at Homestead-"NASCAR 2010 Preseason Thunder," it all changed when Jimmie Johnson hit the wall on Lap 3 at Texas Motor Speedway.

That's what made this a "Tale of Three Speedways."

Sunday's Dickies 500 could have virtually sealed the Sprint Cup championship for Johnson, who could still become the first driver to win four Cup titles in a row. But when David Reutimann's Toyota ran into Sam HornishJr.'s Dodge coming out of the second turn, it triggered a chain of events that altered Johnson's drive to the title.

Hornish's Dodge ran into the side of Johnson's Chevrolet, sending the points leader into the inside wall on the backstretch amid a roar of cheers from the crowd that wanted to see a little excitement in a Chase that has become a yawn.

Johnson drove his Chevy into the garage area, a mangled heap of twisted sheet metal looking as if it were the winner of a demolition derby instead of a NASCAR title. But rather than park the car and roll it on the transporter for the long trip back to the Hendrick Motorsports shop in Harrisburg, N.C., crew chief Chad Knaus and the team immediately went to work.

They cut away the damaged parts of the car, started pounding on the frame and replaced the front and rear clip in an attempt to get it back on track. The tricky part was repairing the delicate front-end suspension, because if that couldn't be fixed precisely, there is no way Johnson could maintain NASCAR's minimum speed and, thus, would be forced to park the car.

Over an hour later, Johnson returned to the track on lap 115. His goal was to make up as many positions as possible because in a battle for a title, every point counts. So as Sunday's race ended with Kurt Busch scoring his first victory at the 1 ½-mile oval -- the 20th Cup win of his career -- Johnson finished 38th. His pre-race 184-point edge over Mark Martin is now 73. He's 112 ahead of Jeff Gordon, 171 over Kurt Busch and 178 over Tony Stewart

"There's still an ouch to it," Johnson said. "This could take place at the start of the race next weekend. You just never know. That's the stuff that worries me. It's a nice points lead but as we saw today, anything can happen. It still is ouch. It's not as bad as it could have been. We could have been 43rd. At one point Chad told me to hop out of the car, it was done; we're going to have to put it on the truck. They were able to get it fixed and Mark didn't win. There were a couple small things that helped us in the end but it's still a big ouch."

Ever since Johnson took over the points lead after the fourth race in the Chase, he has been quick to caution those ready to crown him the champion that plenty could go wrong between then and the end of the season.

Of course, none of us believed him -- and I still don't. Unless he goes completely in the tank, all Sunday's crash did was prevent him from wrapping up the title with one race left in the season.