Wheel2Wheel: Johnson Goes for 4

Based on the last three seasons, Jimmie Johnson has to be a favorite to win his fourth consecutive Sprint Cup title. The NASCAR world gets the championship fight under way this weekend in New Hampshire with the start of the Chase for the Sprint Cup with 11 other drivers fighting to knock off the No. 48.

Can they do it? FanHouse writers Holly Cain and Geoffrey Miller chime in on that and plenty more as they go Wheel2Wheel about Jimmie Johnson:

Will Jimmie Johnson make it four championships in-a-row?

Geoffrey Miller: If you would have asked me, oh, four weeks ago the answer would be a resounding yes. But since Johnson took over and won at Indianapolis, he hasn't exactly lit up the Sprint Cup Series. There's been no Johnson just flat knocking 'em dead with top-fives and wins, and instead we've seen some chinks in the armor of the No. 48.

At Atlanta, the No. 48 looked out to lunch before a few adjustments brought the car back around. A dose of bad luck with a broken axle took them out of contention. Last week at Richmond, though, should have been a little more telling on what we'll see from Johnson to start the Chase, and the news wasn't good. The No. 48 wasn't a factor and left feeling quite frustrated from a race track that many drivers say has direct parallels to success at New Hampshire.

Johnson has made a habit of being exceptionally consistent in the Chase and being smartly aggressive to win more races in Chase competition than anyone to earn those three straight titles. I don't see the same pattern happening this season, meaning title No. 4 is out of reach in 2009.

Holly Cain: While Tony Stewart has put together an astounding debut as an owner/driver, I still think this championship is Johnson's to lose. The experience of his team will be the difference here. They've worked together under the Chase pressure before and more importantly, succeeded. Time after time after time.

This team is not approaching this as though they are trying to win a fourth straight, they look at it as they are trying to win the 2009 championship, wisely off-setting the pressure of this historical accomplishment.

Johnson is the most underrated three-time champion in NASCAR history and deserves more credit as a driver. Yes, he is one of the sport's true "nice guys", but he's also aggressive when he needs to be and smart. There have been times in past Chase races where Johnson could have settled for a good points day. Instead he dug in and battled for a win racing his teammates just as hard as he does Kurt Busch. And he always finds a way to step up his game when it matters most. His eight victories in the 30 previous Chase races is the class of the field. As is Johnson.

Can we consider Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus to be the best driver-crew chief combination in the sport's history?

HC: Statistically, that goes to Dale Inman who was with Richard Petty for seven championships and 198 wins. Again, the argument centers on the demands of different eras.

The sophistication of today's cars combined with the multi-million dollar budgets has made this a whole new game. The fact that Knaus and Johnson have been together for eight seasons in a climate of run-for-the-buck and instant gratification is noteworthy in itself. They are the only combination to win three straight titles together (Yarborough didn't have same crew chief for his three championship runs).

And no duo since Petty and Inman have pulled off four titles given the increased demands and challenges of modern day NASCAR.

GM: There's been a ton of great crew chiefs and even more great drivers in the sport, and occasionally those combinations have melded together into a tremendous bond. But let's be real for a minute. NASCAR is at its most competitive point that it has ever been in. There's never been an era where 15 to 20 teams have a legitimate chance to win every weekend, and yet, the No. 48 became just the second car to ever win three championships in a row.

NASCAR is a game about the driver, but its also much more than just the driver. Because of that, Knaus deserves a lot of credit for creating a race car that wins and continuing a team culture that emphasizes perfection.

Sure, there's been some duos -- the Evernham-Gordon one comes to mind, but the staying power wasn't there -- that have been potent, but none have come at this incredibly competitive time in Sprint Cup history. That's what makes this duo the best ever.

Would winning four straight titles secure Johnson's position as one of the best all-time?

GM: It's always tough to gauge where a current athlete will fit in with the legendary names of old, and how their statistics stack up. Obviously Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are two of the NFL's best quarterbacks right now, but what's an adequate judge of how well they would have fared against the likes of Joe Montana or Bart Starr?

NASCAR racing is no different thanks to different eras of drivers, cars and competition. Johnson certainly should be regarded as one of the all-time greats for the stats he's put up in such a short period of time.

But one thing Johnson has against him is the fact that the Chase format was introduced when he started to hit his stride.

Johnson never won a championship in the season-long accrual format, and his three titles would have pared to just one without the Chase. In 2008, Carl Edwards earned enough points to top Johnson by 16 points if the traditional format was used. Jeff Gordon would have waltzed to a title by 353 points in 2007 while Johnson would have narrowly beat Matt Kenseth in 2006 by 4 points.

HC: In most simple terms, yes. By definition, if Johnson wins a historic fourth consecutive championship he will have dominated in a way no other driver has before.

The argument here is whether you can compare Johnson's four titles under NASCAR's Chase for the Championship format against those of past multi-winners. Yes you can, but it's irrelevant. Johnson has no control over the format. He won the titles with the rules he was given.

Each era provided a unique set of challenges, with each champion equally deserving. Richard Petty, for instance, won the first of his seven titles in 1971, when there were 48 races and the vast majority on one type of track - short track. In his 1974 title year, the competition was such that there were only five race winners and Petty won a third of the races.

When Cale Yarborough won his three straight titles from 1976-78, 54 percent of the races were won by only two drivers - Yarborough and Darrell Waltrip. What does that say about the competition?

Dale Earnhardt won his seven titles when the seasons averaged only 29 races. How would it have affected things if he had to sustain that title run for 36 races and have the points re-set in a 10-race playoff?

Who knows how Johnson would have fared under a 50-race schedule or how Petty would do with today's cars and depth of competition. But Johnson absolutely belongs in the company of Petty, Earnhardt, Yarborough, Waltrip and Gordon.