JOHNSON WINS 7TH CHAMPIONSHIP AT HOMESTEAD

Johnson joins Petty and Earnhardt as only 7 time Champions

Johnson+hoisting+Championship+trophy

Austin Travis

Johnson hoisting Championship trophy

Jimmie Johnson got by Kyle Larson on an overtime restart to take the win and the Championship at Homestead last Sunday.  For Johnson, it was a record-tying seventh championship.  Johnson started last after having to go through inspection twice.  After 30 laps, he was in the top-10.  “I felt like something was going to happen, and I was going to be OK with it,” Johnson said. “For a while I came to grips with the reality of (finishing) third, fourth, somewhere in there and shaking somebody else’s hand and being happy for them.  Then it changed so quick at the end.  When I was coming to the checkered flag, I had to really look closely at it going by to make sure it was, like, ‘Is this really happening?'”  Carl Edwards was the front runner of the Championship contenders for most of the day until 10 laps to go.  On a restart, Joey Logano dove down under Edwards and came back up into him in a very unprofessional move that wiped Edwards out as well as multiple other cars.  Edwards nearly flipped over.  Edwards walked away and refused to get in the ambulance, and walked to the infield medical center.  “I had a lot of thoughts on that walk,” Edwards said.  “It’s hard.  You put so much into this and so many people push so hard and you don’t get opportunities like this very often, so I just hope that pretty quickly I can get over the frustration and look at this for what it is.  It was a great opportunity, and really, up until the end, it was a lot of fun.”  To see the 2017 Daytona 500, tune in to FOX on February 26 at 2:00 PM ET.