Does Johnson's dominance mean the NASCAR season is over?

Right now it looks like NASCAR’s 2009 version of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup is his to lose.

But does that mean that the 2009 season is over?

Of course not. There are still five races to go and although there seems slim chance for anyone to overtake the steamroller known as Jimmie Johnson and the No. 48 team, there is still ample opportunity for teams to win races.

For example take Roush-Fenway Racing driver Greg Biffle. He was seeded 12th in the Chase when it began and although he certainly had a chance, poor runs in the first two races pretty much killed any hope of a run to the championship.

There was a glimmer of hope after a third place finish at Kansas, but follow up finishes of 20th and 16th have left him stuck in seventh in the standings. Add to all his other troubles a little on track incident with Joey Logano during the Nationwide race at California and this year’s Chase has not been a memorable one.

He now heads to this weekend’s stop in Martinsville 268 points out of first and pretty much eliminated from any hope of ever catching Johnson.

But that doesn’t mean he can’t still try to win races. In order to do that though Biffle will have a tall order this weekend.

Although he does have one pole and one top-five finish here in the truck series, Biffle's best finish at Martinsville in a Cup car is seventh. In the spring race, the team struggled after both practice sessions were rained out. Biffle came home 28th.

"Martinsville has never been a good track for me,” Biffle said. “But because of that, I think a good run there would be that much better.”

One thing the team has done in preparation for this weekend is to test the Ford Fusion they will race at Rockingham, the former NASCAR track a couple of hours from Charlotte.

“Greg was happy with the car there,” Biffle’s crew chief Greg Erwin said. “I think we picked up a few things that will help us at Martinsville. Martinsville and the little track at Rockingham are obviously different track surfaces but it was good to get this car out there.”

Biffle said the test was part of an overall effort for the team.

“We’re doing everything we can as an organization to make sure we're improving our Martinsville program,” Biffle said and added that the key to running fast at NASCAR’s smallest track will be the turns.

“The most important thing is to get the car to rotate through the corner and beat them off the gas.” Biffle said. “If we can do that, we should be okay.”

The team will of course need to be better then okay but still have time to turn things around. They may be out of contention for the championship, but this season is far from over.

"We're just fighting for the highest spot in points we can finish,” Biffle said. “Our goal is to finish as high in points as we possibly can and if that's one, two, three, four or five, that's what it is.”
 

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