HOMESTEAD, Fla. u Barring a blown engine or a multi-car melee that snares his seemingly charmed Chevrolet, Jimmie Johnson will win a fourth consecutive NASCAR championship Sunday - a feat never achieved by the legendary Richard Petty, the late Dale Earnhardt or any other driver to strap into a stock car.
In most sports, such dynasties rouse fans' passions, spurring hosannas and hate in equal measure.
But Johnson's history-making moment - which he'll achieve by finishing 25th or better in the season-ending Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway - is largely being met with indifference by casual sports fans and a measure of irritation by many ardent NASCAR fans who've grown weary of his spot-on performances down the stretch.
It rankles NASCAR President Brian France, who has long argued that stock-car racing is the nation's most "under-covered" sport.
"Jimmie's on the cusp of a dynasty of four in a row," France says. "If this were any other sport, it would be a bigger story."
And it puzzles Johnson's fellow racers, who say NASCAR's three-time defending champion doesn't get the credit he deserves.
"Four championships in a row?" muses an awestruck Brian Vickers, a former teammates of Johnson's at Hendrick Motorsports. "I don't know what it is about our sport, but you go watch Tiger Woods play golf, Roger Federer in tennis, or you watch the Yankees win another World Series, it is just celebrated throughout the industry and (viewed as) an opportunity to see the best at the best and to see the best win multiple times in a row.
"For some reason, when that happens in our industry, everyone asks, ‘What's wrong?' "
Johnson and his No. 48 race team have been nothing short of remarkable this season.
Nonetheless, his heroics haven't garnered broad acclaim.
Veteran radio host Pat Patterson, who fields calls from NASCAR fans 52 weekends a year, estimates that 70 percent of his callers this fall voiced frustration over Johnson's march toward a fourth consecutive Sprint Cup championship and the ninth over all for Hendrick Motorsports.
For starters, in a sport that celebrates the grit and guile of the common man, Johnson, 34, is perceived as a fortunate son.
He says it's an undeserved rap.
"Nothing has come easy for me my entire life," Johnson said at Phoenix International Raceway this month, after winning his seventh race of the season. "I don't expect the fan appeal - some of this perception stuff - to come easy. I've always had to earn it."
And while corporate sponsors delight in Johnson's sterling comportment on and off the track, traditional NASCAR fans often fault him for being too polished and politically correct. They tend to prefer more polarizing drivers - guys who raise a little hell once in a
while.
"We're watching racing, and it's actually better racing than we've ever had, statistically speaking," measured by the number of lead changes and cars that finish races on the lead lap, Patterson said. "But people want to be part of the people who are driving the racecars. People aren't in love with NASCAR; they're in love with the people who race in NASCAR."
Posted in Sports on Sunday, November 22, 2009 12:15 am | Tags: Nascar, Jimmie Johnson
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