posted May 26, 2006 at 09:34 EST in NASCAR Betting Trends

 

Johnson in groove

At this Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600, there is Jimmie Johnson, and there is everybody else.

Johnson is easily the man to beat at this week’s stop on the NASCAR circuit. Nobody has torn up Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Charlotte, N.C. like Johnson. He’s the three-time defending champion at the Coca-Cola 600, and took the checkered flag at the last two Bank of America 500 (formerly the UAW-GM Quality) events, also at Lowe’s. But wait, there’s more: Johnson was victorious at last week’s NEXTEL All-Star Challenge at Lowe’s, earning a cool $1-million bonus in the process. Johnson previously won the All-Star event in 2003. In all, Johnson has won seven of the last 10 races at Charlotte.

Johnson certainly knows how to make his advertisers happy. He drives the No. 48 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, with Lowe’s as his main sponsor. It’s no coincidence that Johnson’s three-year contract extension was announced the week of the All-Star Challenge. He’s at the top of his game, and at the top of the drivers standings, nearly 100 points ahead of Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth. Even better, Johnson’s lucrative victories at the All-Star Challenge and the Daytona 500 helped beef up the California native’s earnings to over $4.5 million already this season. That’s $2 million more than his closest rivals.

Even the new asphalt at Lowe’s hasn’t slowed Johnson down. After last year’s tire-shredding UAW-GM Quality event exposed the flaws in the diamond-grinding process the track underwent in 2005, LMS officials decided to spend $3 million on a fresh coat of the latest in asphalt technology. Johnson survived the 90-lap All-Star Challenge while other drivers, including Casey Mears, were sliding all over the new surface like Bambi trying to learn how to skate. Eight cars were knocked out of the race after one particularly chaotic crash.

“There is no grip out there,” Mears told the Associated Press after last week’s race. “I’ve never driven anything like this before. It’s just ice. It has a little bit of grip and then nothing, and there's not much warning.”

Adding to the potential for chaos this week is the harder substance Goodyear is using in its tires this year – something Scott Riggs described as “the hardest thing known to man.” The tires might not shred like they did last year, but they don’t distribute weight as well during the turns, and they also cause vibrations that, in Jeff Gordon’s case, prevented him from noticing that he was driving on a flat tire for two laps last week.

The tire situation prompted NASCAR officials to make one other changes that has drivers fuming. The cars will be carrying 14-gallon tanks instead of the more familiar 22 gallons, which is going to force drivers to pit more often – at least 12 times, according to grumbling crew chiefs. “You will pit every 18 minutes,” Kevin Harvick told reporters. “Tires are $2,000 a set, and it’s really hard to know what you’ve got and how many tires you need. I just think it’s kind of a joke.”

The Coca-Cola 600 isn’t a one-liner, either; it’s an epic comedy. The “600” in this case refers not to laps, but miles, making this the longest race on the NASCAR circuit. Provided the race isn’t cut short by rain, as it was in 1997 and 2003, it will take about 4 ½-hours to complete. Make sure to grab the largest size of TV-friendly snacks if you aren’t doing so already.

Comments or Questions? Email FaceOff@BetUS.com.