Lovers and Haters Of The #48 Team….Relax

By Guest Columnist Jim Fitzgerald

You would think that Homestead was tomorrow and Jimmie Johnson and the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports race team was in eighth place, 300 points out of the lead. The talk around some fans, be they fans of the No. 48 or otherwise, has a lot of arched eyebrows involved.

Shock and surprise all over the land…

The fans of the No. 48 are sweating -- until this last weekend -- Jimmie hasn’t won any of the past half-dozen races, which is throwing off his 1-of-6 average. “What’s wrong? Why is this happening? This is not the Jimmie Johnson/Chad Knaus partnership we know and love, and certainly not the one from which we’ve come to expect the stellar results.

Jimmie has more ‘Did Not Finish’ races this year than he did all of last year. Is there a problem? Is it the new spoiler that is throwing them off the rails?”

On the other side of the fence, those not so in love with Johnson and his run of four-year-championship dominance are throwing early parties.

“The days of dominance are over! The fall of Jimmie Johnson and the No. 48! Chad has lost the edge! NASCAR finally made a change that the No. 48 team can not counter! Whoo hoo!!”

Relax.

Everyone is printing headlines that might ride right alongside “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN.” If you think for one second that Jimmie Johnson, Chad Knaus, Rick Hendrick, and anyone else associated with team No. 48 is even remotely beginning to perspire, wake up and smell the sawdust.

We’re not even halfway through the season, and even if the Chase started today, Jimmie Johnson and his team would be well in place to win championship number five.

True…they have won only one race with the new spoiler, and that came on a mistake by Marcos Ambrose at Infineon. The resulting finishes in the “new spoiler era” are not in the tradition of the No. 48 team. However, we need to remember that if it weren’t for an issue here, or an error there, Johnson could easily have more tallies in the victory column than he has now.

A few weeks back at Dover, it was one mental mistake on pit road that took Johnson out of the running. Beyond that, that car has run up front, led the bulk of the laps, and had only Kyle Busch, the eventual winner, as competition. Yep…they are awful.

It is always a bit comical how, when something strange appears in the patterns of chaos, race fans will usually take it to the extreme. Johnson has a short string of races where he has not won, and suddenly, depending on where you stand in fandom, either the Messiah has come to deliver us from the foulest stenches of Hell, or fire and frogs are raining down from the Heavens.

Either way, the world will have ended and Johnson will not have won a fifth consecutive championship.

Sadly, that will be the great story of the year. One team may have what it takes to put the Dynasty of the No. 48 to bed, but we will hear more about what team did NOT win the championship instead of what team DID win.

Back to reality, now -- rest assured, the No. 48 team will be doing whatever it takes to make it into the Chase and ultimately win a fifth championship. Whether that happens, or by some strange stoke of fate they do not pull it off, I can assure you with 99.7% certainly that the No. 48 team and Jimmie Johnson will be a factor.

Jeff Gordon hasn’t been calling him “Four-Time” without merit. Make no mistake….the road to the 2010 Sprint Cup Championship will go right through Team No. 48. Whether is stops there or barrels through it remains to be seen.

The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.