Jimmie Johnson stakes claim among NASCAR’s best

Love him or hate him, Jimmie Johnson officially added his name to the list of the best NASCAR drivers of all time Sunday night.

Despite a mediocre 20th-place finish thanks to a conservative pit strategy, Johnson won his third-consecutive Sprint Cup Series championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway after besting Carl Edwards by a comfortable 69 points.

Edwards did all he could, however, to take away Johnson’s three-peat in the season’s final race by winning the Ford 400 on an impressive fuel mileage gamble – the second race he’s won in that fashion in the past three events.

Edwards also led the most laps to score the maximum points available to any driver in the race, but Johnson’s No. 48 didn’t finish far enough back to make the win mean much for Edwards.

Johnson’s title and season carry quite a bit of significance in numerous statistical forms, from being the first driver since Cale Yarborough in 1978 to take three titles in a row to overtaking teammate and co-owner Jeff Gordon for the highest winning percentage among active drivers.

Only three drivers – Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt and Gordon – have won more championships than Johnson. He’s now tied at three career championships with four other drivers.

Money problems hit the NASCAR circuit

As the 2008 NASCAR season ended, the realities of an economic downturn forced the sport as a whole to face the music when it comes to cutting costs.

Just prior to the Homestead race, NASCAR announced all testing at NASCAR-sanctioned racetracks was banned for 2009 in an attempt to cut costs for all of the race teams.

Testing involves a team practicing at a racetrack in between races to help prepare car setups for an upcoming race.

Plenty of race teams have also been laying off employees due to an expected drop in corporate sponsorship funding in 2009. The biggest layoff came last week after Dale Earnhardt Inc. and Chip Ganassi Racing merged their NASCAR operations to create a four-car team, cutting 116 people in the process, according to The Charlotte Observer.

The new team, Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, plans to race four cars in 2009 with its highest-profile drivers being Juan Pablo Montoya and Martin Truex Jr.

Stewart ends decade at Joe Gibbs Racing

Tony Stewart, a two-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion from nearby Columbus, Ind., officially wrapped up his 10-year stint with Joe Gibbs Racing on Sunday evening at Homestead with a ninth-place finish.

Stewart is leaving the team on a positive note after winning his last title in 2005 to start Stewart-Haas Racing for the 2009 season. He announced the deal earlier this season at Chicagoland Speedway and has since hired fellow Hoosier Ryan Newman to pilot the other half of the two-car operation.

During ESPN’s pre-race coverage of the season finale, Stewart was shown making an extra effort to thank his entire JGR crew and talked about how the team was like a family to him.

Stewart’s entire Sprint Cup career has been with JGR, where he has totaled 33 wins in 356 starts, including two home-track wins at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. His final win with JGR came in October at Talladega Superspeedway.