Ten years after winning his first Sprint Cup title, Jimmie Johnson claimed a record-tying 7th crown on Sunday with a victory in the season-ending Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The 41-year-old Hendrick Motorsports driver has matched NASCAR Hall of Famers Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty with seven championships in NASCAR’s top division.
Sunday’s win didn’t come easy for Johnson, who started the race from the rear of the field after forfeiting his #14 starting position as the result of an unapproved modification to his #48 Chevrolet that was discovered in pre-race inspection. Johnson stormed past race leader Kyle Larson on the final restart and pulled away from the field over the last three laps to notch his 5th victory of the season – three of which came during the Chase. He beat Larson to the checkered flag by a half-second. Kevin Harvick grabbed third place. Joey Logano, one of the four remaining drivers in title contention entering the weekend, finished 4th with Jamie McMurray completing the top five. Top-seeded Kyle Busch finished 6th in his bid for back-to-back Sprint Cup championships.
The championship hopes of Joe Gibbs Racing’s Carl Edwards came to a grinding halt less than ten laps from the finish of Sunday’s race. On the next-to-last restart, Edwards – the #5 seed in this year’s Chase – crashed hard after moving down the track to block Joey Logano, who was charging to the front and got the nose of his Team Penske Ford inside Edwards’ left-rear bumper. Logano made it through the contact relatively unscathed. But Edwards’ J-G-R Toyota hit the inside wall, slid across the track and was collected by another car before the battered #19 Camry came to rest. He was unable to complete the race and finished 39th in the 40-car field .
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– story by John Singler
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