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God i hope they somehow fix this car.....

I find it gradually harder to dislike JJ.

Am I alone in this.

People always turn their nose up at someone who is dominating any series (I'm one of them) but you've got to hand it to the 48 team. They are just insanely consistent and I can't believe how well they can bounce back from adversity and that's what you need to win a championship. When you take a step back Jimmie really is a likable guy, certainly no Sebastian Vettle thank fuck. Congrats JJ.

I have nothing against Johnson, he reminds me a lot of Kenseth, I just hate the team he drives for (I despise Hendrick), and I'm not a big fan of Knaus, either.

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Gael

I have to say I just rolled into the "F*** YOU JJ"-mode when I started watching NASCAR (about 06-07 I think), but I'm starting to realize that I've never really disliked anything he did It's a bit the same as with Vettel for me

I'd love to see a more diverse selection of champions, but honestly there's a handful of drivers I'd hate to see win a championship more than him, like the Busch brothers to name a couple.

A part of me wanted to see Kenseth be this year's champion, but I hate JGR more than Hendrick so... it was going to be win-lose either way.

Congrats on the championship JJ.

yeah, johnson seems like an amazing person, but as a driver i could never put him in the same category as earnhardt sr. if jimmy's team goes on to win 8 championships i would definitely say they deserve it. but honestly its the team as a whole, and jj is merely a good enough driver to finish where the car is capable of finishing.

just like with jeff - take evernham/knaus away and the championships stop rolling in.

Yeah I don't think so. The same argument was made on raceday... you don't say.. take away richard petty's crew chief and he never would have his titles, or take dale's away and there goes his titles. Jeff won a title after evernham.. and would have won another without the chase too. Plus Jimmie has won in different styles of cars from the car of yesterday, the car of tomorrow, and now the gen6 car. It takes a lot to be able to adapt to different styles and handling each needs.

It's pretty much impossible to win the best driver argument in any direction because of the sheer amount of factors that are involved.

Good idea!

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Until Johnson and Knaus go their separate ways. I'll still question the extent of Johnson Cup success. I'm bit surprised that Knaus hasn't moved on to a management position by now.

You need to look at it this way.. every driver needs a good wrench behind him to succeed. Foyt had Bignotti, Vettel has Newey and Johnson has Knaus. Earnhardt won championships with Kirk Shelmerdine and Andy Petree but with Larry McReynolds, he was terrible. Does that mean Earnhardt actually sucked? No, Larrymac was just unable to unlock his full potential is all.

I don't think anyone in the future will top the success that Johnson and Knaus have accomplished together, yet you never know.

Richard Petty & Dale Inman, Darrell Waltrip & Jeff Hammond, and Jeff Gordon & Ray Evernham should be mentioned in the same sentence as JJ & CK, but those tandems didn't win six titles in an eight-year span.

I know that this is a kind of tired argument, but they also didn't have a playoff system consisting almost entirely of tracks that they were strong at.

Yeah. If he won his titles without any bullshit surrounding the "racing" i'd be happy with the results. Also last night was the first time in the last 7 years I missed the finish of the Cup season finale. Probably will watch the 500 next year but after that.....

It's ridiculously huge flaw that it is the same 10 tracks in the chase every year.

One thing that I can't help but find crazy is that they've been title contenders *since their first year together*. Knaus didn't set the world on fire when he was crew chief at Melling, but with Jimmie, they (evidently) cannot be stopped.

Think about that, though. Had Mark Martin's steering not gone haywire during pace laps at Talladega, and taken out the then-points leader Johnson, the momentum could have swung completely the other way. I mean, yeah, Jimmie ended up spinning later in the day, and every single Hendrick engine in the field ended up blowing up, but... they were there. They had a massive charge in late '03 as well, and had Kenseth not been the super-consistent force he'd been all year, it would have been quite interesting at Homestead had he not already clinched.

He did blow up that day, too... but, that's all theoreticals. Didn't happen, so it's irrelevant. Just fun to think about, that's all.

Also, remember when Jeff Gordon won 6 of 8 races in '98, and then Kyle Busch again in '08, and we all said "MAN THAT THERE IS DOMINATION". How about 6 titles in 8 years. Man... that there is domination.

I agree that it would be more fun if they changed it up every year, but last I checked, every other team has run those same 10 tracks for the last few years. You can't blame Jimmie for Kenseth, Gordon, Edwards, Martin and Hamlin choking down the stretch. I'd actually call the 48's struggles in late 2012 a product of bad luck, whereas the end of 2011 was just not that great for them performance-wise.

The real question is, Andre, did you change your password prior to Homestead? If not, you're to blame.

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Gael

Kind of scary that Denny won the final race, probably the only race these past few months he hasn't been running some sort of R&D setup. That team might be better going into next year than we think.