Jimmie Johnson is an American race car driver who has won seven Drivers' Championships in the NASCAR Cup Series.[1] He entered NASCAR part-time in the Busch Series in 1998 with the ST Motorsports and later Curb Agajanian Performance Group teams.[2] Johnson drove eight races for Herzog Motorsports in the 1999 Busch Series, and spent two full seasons with the team in 2000 and 2001 before moving to Hendrick Motorsports in the 2001 Winston Cup Series.[3] He was runner-up to Matt Kenseth in 2003 and Kurt Busch in 2004,[3] before winning five successive Cup Series championships from 2006 to 2010, breaking Cale Yarborough's record of three consecutive titles from 1976 to 1978.[4] Johnson claimed a further two titles in 2013 and 2016 to tie Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty with seven career Cup Series championships.[3][4]
He achieved his first NASCAR victory at the 2001 Sam's Club Presents the Hills Brothers Coffee 300 Busch Series round at Chicagoland Speedway on July 14.[5] Johnson took his maiden Cup Series win at the 2002 NAPA Auto Parts 500 at California Speedway in a season in which he registered three victories.[3][6] He won 18 races in his first four full seasons with Hendrick Motorsports, including a season-high eight in 2004. Johnson took his first Cup Series championship in 2006 with five wins.[3] He enjoyed his most successful season in terms of race victories with ten in 2007. In Johnson's following three seasons with Hendrick Motorsports, he won no less than six races.[4] He managed only two wins in 2011 and five in 2012. Johnson won six more times as he took his sixth championship in 2013. This was followed by four wins in 2014, five each in 2015 and his seventh championship victory in 2016 and three in 2017.[3] Johnson's most recent victory in NASCAR came at the 13th round of the 2017 season at the 2017 AAA 400 Drive for Autism at Dover International Speedway.[7][8]
Over the course of his racing career, he won a total of 84 NASCAR races, 83 of which were in the Cup Series.[7][9] Johnson also won one race in the NASCAR Busch Series.[9] He also won the Daytona 500 twice in 2006 and 2013.[3][10] As of 2020[update], Johnson ranks sixth on the all-time Cup wins list with 83, tied with Yarborough.[10] He is most successful at Dover International Speedway, where he claimed eleven victories,[11] including a season sweep of wins at the track in 2002 and 2009.[7] Johnson's largest margin of victory in his career was at the 2008 Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix International Raceway, a race where he finished 7.002 seconds ahead of the second-placed Clint Bowyer of the Richard Childress Racing team,[12] while the narrowest was in the 2011 Aaron's 499 at Talladega Superspeedway, where he beat Bowyer by 0.002 seconds, one of the closest finishes in NASCAR.[13]
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