With four laps to go in the Amp Energy 500 Sunday at Talladega, Jimmie Johnson found himself mired in 28th position behind eight plus rows of cars three wide. Johnson had spent much of the day riding in the back of the restrictor plate track trying to give himself room to avoid “The Big One” should it occur. However, that strategy had seemed to backfire as the Lowes Chevrolet was looking at taking a huge hit in the points. Unable to move up, Johnson’s teammates and closest pursuers in The Chase for the Sprint Cup, Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin, were running in the top five and looking to make the final three races in the NASCAR season suddenly relevant again.

Oh how things can change quickly at Talladega.

As the field headed out of the backstretch towards turn three, Marcos Ambrose “bump-drafted” Ryan Newman a bit too hard sending Newman forward into his teammate Tony Stewart. Stewart’s car bounced off the outside retaining wall and back into Newman, causing him to shoot across the track and collect both Ambrose and Kevin Harvick. As the three cars slid towards the infield at the entrance of turn three, Newman’s car did a 180 allowing air to rush underneath the car at 185 mph lifting it into the airand on top of Harvick’s. Newman’s ensuing slide across the racetrack and off the safer barrier in turn three caused the car to come to a tumbling stop on its roof between turns three and four. Thankfully, the new car design saved Newman from serious injury. However, the ensuing red flag and extensive clean up caused the event to go into NASCAR’s version of overtime called a “Green, White, Checker” finish. This meant the field would be forced to run three
 additional laps beyond the scheduled 188 lap, 500 mile distance. With no previous cautions for nearly 50 laps prior, many cars sudedenly had fuel issues, among them Gordon and Martin. Johnson, not pushing his car at the time, had pitted 10 laps after his teammates had made their final stop. His fuel was good and his luck suddenly better. Car after car headed towards the pits for fuel at the end of the red flag period. Johnson, only laps earlier had been 28th, restarted 10th. Gordon and Martin-30th and 28th respectively.

The restart with two laps to go was predictably a furious charge to the finish with many fast cars starting in the back trying to overtake slower ones. At any track, this would be a recipe for disaster. At Talladega it was equal to Armaggeon. April winner Brad Keselowski wound up shoving Kurt Busch too hard through the tri-oval causing the Miller Lite Dodge to veer first into the wall and then across the track into the back half of the field. Ironically, Busch was running one spot behind Johnson who escaped his second major incident within 5 laps. Martin and Gordon weren’t so lucky. Fuel issues stemming from the Newman incident had caused them to start  towards the rear of the field and put them both squarely in the eye of the storm. In fact, Martin wound up tumbling through the tri-oval landing back on all four wheels to finish 30th. Gordon caught a spinning Robbie Gordon through the same area and finished 20th. Johnson managed a sixth place finish and
 increased his point lead over Martin to 184. Gordon trails by 190.

Unless something drastic occurs over thefinal three races, Johnson will make history and win his fourth championship in a row. Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good. Unfortunately for the competition, Jimmie Johnson is both.