HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- A crewman from the No. 48 team dove off the pit box, and was crowd-surfed to the ground by his teammates. Nick Lachey, the pop singer and childhood friend of
Jimmie Johnson
, flashed four fingers to cameramen who couldn't click away fast enough. Even Chad Knaus, the all-business crew chief of NASCAR's newly crowned four-time championship team, filmed the happenings with a hand-held video recorder, preserving the moment for posterity.
"I knew this was going to be a big deal," Knaus said, after the fireworks and the burnouts and the champagne-spraying at Homestead-Miami Speedway had finally come to an end. "I wanted to take something to remember it by. Because even going through all this stuff, it's a whirlwind, and you forget. I wanted to document it."
There will be no shortage of documentation, not after Sunday night, when Johnson did something that no driver in the six-decade history of NASCAR's premier series has been able to do. And yet, a record-breaking four consecutive championships -- besting the three in a row
Cale Yarborough
attained from 1976-78 -- seems like a mere stepping stone.
Perhaps because it was never really in question, the history that Johnson and Knaus made here on the edge of the Everglades felt overshadowed by the history that may still be yet to come. The question isn't whether they'll continue to win titles. It's how many they'll ultimately end up with before time catches up to them.
Because right now, nothing else can. So what's next? Five in a row? Seven overall, equaling the holy grail of NASCAR records, currently held by two men so iconic they can be identified merely as the Intimidator and the King? Sunday night, as the flashbulbs popped and pieces of star-shaped confetti floated down to the temporary stage set up along the race track's frontstretch, all things seemed possible for an operation that's become the flagship of the powerful Hendrick Motorsports organization.
"It's tough to really understand because of the way the last four years have gone, and based on questions and discussions, we make it look easy. But it is so, so difficult to compete in this sport. And what we've done is truly amazing, and the fact that it's never been done before speaks to how truly difficult this task is to win four in a row," said Johnson, 34, and likely with another competitive decade before him if he wants it.
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Continued
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