HOMESTEAD, Fla.- Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson both came up winners yesterday.

Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus never slowed down enough to consider what a record-tying third consecutive championship would mean to their legacy. Don’t count on them doing it now.

HOMESTEAD, Fla. - Jimmie Johnson probably will be the man spraying champagne and celebrating a third straight Sprint Cup championship Sunday night.

HOMESTEAD, Fla. - Is this the end of the road for Dale Earnhardt Inc., the company that the late Dale Earnhardt created and expected his family to continue?
Maybe.

AVONDALE, Ariz. – The bad economic news out of Detroit didn’t settle very well in the NASCAR garage, where hundreds of stock car racing crewmen are on pins and needles about their futures in this sport, and where drivers are sweating things, too.

PHOENIX - Lee White, the boss of Toyota’s racing arm (TRD), doesn’t consider that Toyota teams collapsed in NASCAR’s Chase for the Championship.

PHOENIX - With a little more than a week left in the season, Dale Earnhardt Inc. has four teams in the top 35 and three good drivers, including promising Aric Almirola and Regan Smith … but only one sponsor.

They popped the champagne in Victory Lane and celebrated as if Jimmie Johnson just won another championship.
Almost. But not quite there.
Johnson moved inches closer to his record-tying third straight NASCAR title Sunday, trouncing the field at Phoenix International Raceway to deliver a knockout punch to Carl Edwards’ championship hopes

PHOENIX - The latest gambit by DEI’s Teresa Earnhardt to keep her four-team operation up and running includes talks about a possible merger with fellow car owner Chip Ganassi, according to Detroit sources. But how Ganassi’s Dodge factory deal might mesh with Earnhardt’s Chevy factory deal is quite unclear.

Jimmie Johnson’s run toward an almost certain third consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup title has prompted many ideas on how to change the Chase for the championship to make it more competitive.

Sam Ard is 69 years old and suffering from both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. He’s not permitted to drive anywhere anymore, and no one is exactly sure how much Ard understands about the latest push to help his crumbling finances and mounting medical bills.

Taking risks is a whole lot easier when you believe you don’t have much to lose.

FORT WORTH, Texas. - Kyle “Rowdy” Busch once held sway in the Toyota camp, but he lost his groove.

FORT WORTH, Texas - Jimmie Johnson has been riding an endless wave for several years now, but his prowess could be dragging down NASCAR’s championship ratings, and his third straight Sprint Cup championship, which seems inevitable, might have NASCAR executives scratching their heads about what to do next season.

FORT WORTH, Texas. - While Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus are getting their New York City tuxedos cleaned and pressed, the rest of the drivers in the Sprint Cup Chase for the Championship, the ones all lagging so far behind, are trying to figure out what hurricane blew through.

Cale Yarborough emerged from retirement recently to see what all the fuss is about as Jimmie Johnson prepares to join him as a three-time champion on NASCAR’s top series.

Whatever Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson have figured out with this new winged car, they’re certainly not sharing any secrets.

If Jimmie Johnson finishes Race 8 of the Chase for the Sprint Cup in Texas on Sunday with at least a 323-point lead, he’d need only to start the last two races to clinch a third straight championship. Or he can finish at least ninth in the last three races to clinch.

Jimmie Johnson is on a roll again, and whether he’s willing to admit it or not, while everyone else in NASCAR is chasing him, he’s chasing history.

SOUTH BOSTON, Va. (AP) - The long blonde hair hanging over the back of a racing suit covered with sponsor logos makes it apparent that Kristin Bumbera is not your average racer.

A win Saturday night at Lowe’s Motor Speedway rocketed Jeff Burton onto Jimmie Johnson’s bumper with five races to go to decide the championship, and Burton is convinced he’s as capable of winning a title now as he was when he was a young hotshot

Rules, rules, rules…. what’s NASCAR without a few controversies every now and then? And, heck, maybe there aren’t enough these days - remember those classic Ford vs. Chevy arguments, which the homogenized common-template winged car has sent to the history books?

Tony Stewart was the first driver convicted of dipping below NASCAR’s out-of-bounds line, learning a valuable lesson in 2001 at Daytona that he’s carried with him the last seven years.

TALLADEGA, Ala. - Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Tony Stewart, who were so strong during the regular season, have fallen to the bottom of the heap in the Sprint Cup title chase. And at 10th (Hamlin), 11th (Stewart) and 12th (Busch), they have virtually no chance to get back into contention.

Remember Kyle Busch?

Dale Earnhardt Jr.‘s championship hopes this season are all but gone, and he never really ever even got in the game.

Well, it worked in the video game.
Carl Edwards did everything he could Sunday, including purposely bouncing off the concrete wall at Kansas Speedway, but it wasn’t quite enough to beat two-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson.

KANSAS CITY, Kansas - Flat-out, wide-open, and get the heck out of my way, or eat my bumper. That’s the approach Greg Biffle, Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards are taking in this championship chase.

NASCAR notes.

DOVER, Del. - Greg Biffle, a NASCAR Cup winner since 2003, is a well known part of the stock car racing world.