Jimmie Johnson Almost Clinches 2008 Sprint Cup Championship in Phoenix

Jimmie Johnson will have to wait one more week to hold the NASCAR Sprint Cup. He could have clinched this week during the 2008 Checker O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Raceway. Johnson did his part by winning the race but Carl Edwards clung to hope with a fourth place effort.

The 2008 Chase for the Cup will be decided at the final race of the season in Homestead.

Qualifying

Point leader Jimmie Johnson took the pole which gave him the first pick of pit stall and a good chance of leading at least one lap to claim five bonus points. Jamie McMurray started along side in second.

Kurt Busch and David Reutimann made up row number two while Dale Earnhardt Jr. rounded out the top five.

Drop Of The Green

Jamie McMurray drove it hard on the first lap and prevented Jimmie Johnson from leading the first lap. McMurray is Carl Edwards' teammate and by beating Johnson on lap one was able to prevent his teammate from falling further behind in points.

McMurray lead all the way to the first caution. Pit strategy shuffled the running order and Jimmie Johnson came out fifth, the first car that got four new tires. He was working his way towards the front when the rain came and brought out the red flag.

Storylines

This race saw two red flags. One for weather that lasted 26 minutes. The other was for a late race incident that saw one car on top of another. The second red flag lasted 19 minutes.

As a result of these delays ABC made the decision to drop the race and pick up the coverage on ESPN2 in the eastern half of the country.

ESPN2? Really? Not only did they move the race from network television but they couldn't even make room for it on the primary cable network. This race was dropped all the way to ESPN2.

This really shows how far NASCAR has fallen. They get no respect from the networks anymore.

Chasing The Checkers

Late in the race Jimmie Johnson was still out front over Kurt Busch and Jamie McMurray. No one had been able to challenge Johnson all day and the end of this race was no different.

Johnson survived a number of late race restarts to claim the win.

Top Ten

1. Jimmie Johnson
2. Kurt Busch
3. Jamie McMurray
4. Carl Edwards
5. Denny Hamlin
6. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
7. Kevin Harvick
8. Kyle Busch
9. Jeff Burton
10. David Ragan

The Points

Jimmie Johnson came into today's race 106 points ahead of Carl Edwards in the standings. If he could leave Phoenix with 162 points lead he would clinch the 2008 Sprint Cup Championship.

Jimmie did extend his point lead but wsa not able to clinch. Jimmie Johnson only needs to finish 36th or better next weekend in Homestead to clinch the 2008 Championship.

1. Jimmie Johnson -0
2. Carl Edwards -141
3. Greg Biffle -203
4. Jeff Burton -269
5. Kevin Harvick -328
6. Clint Bowyer -335
7. Jeff Gordon -410
8. Matt Kenseth -471
9. Denny Hamlin -474
10. Dale Earnhardt Jr. -476
11. Kyle Busch -481
12. Tony Stewart -505