As the #48 Lowe’s Chevy was dragged back to the garage area on Saturday night behind the wrecker, a loud roar of approval could be heard all the way to Charlotte. After a “wrong place, wrong time” incident that involved AJ Allmendinger losing his brakes and crashing hard into Jimmie Johnson, a large part of the crowd in attendance at Darlington Raceway made it known that they were glad to the see the 48 retired from the event. The reaction got me thinking, is Jimmie Johnson the new driver the fans love to hate?
Think back over your own time as a NASCAR fan. Who have been the sport’s most hated drivers? Names come to mind like Darrell Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace, Jeff Gordon, and the Busch brothers. What’s interesting to note about all of these guys, is just how polarizing they were and are. They would beat the brakes off the competition, wreck people, or get wrecked, and then get out of the car and whine, talk smack, or antagonize. Their attitudes and styles appealed to many, but were hated by others. We had Ironhead, Jaws, and Rusty the Whiner.
Flash forward to today, and instead of focusing their hate towards extreme personalities, fans now hate vanilla. Johnson has flat dominated NASCAR competition over the last four years, and yet he hasn’t done so much as ruffle one feather of a competitor on the track. He kicks ass, thanks his sponsors and crew, and moves on to the next track. There is no media bashing, interview flake outs, whining, or trash talk.
Besides the domination and his very moderate style, Jimmie has also come to represent to NASCAR fans all that is wrong with the sport today. Instead of the Allison’s and Cale Yarborough fighting on the back stretch at Daytona, we have drivers (like Jimmie) who are very corporate and choose their words and actions carefully. Fighting and on track clashes are entertaining, endless sponsor shout outs and boring interviews are not.
So far this season, it appears that all the Jimmie/Chad voodoo dolls might finally be working. Through eleven races, the team has already tripled it’s number of DNFs from all of 2009. Two of those having come within the last three weeks. And after some heated exchanges on the radio during Saturday night’s race, the team may be showing there are cracks in the armor.
As the season progresses, expect the cheers to get louder if Jimmie has bad luck, and the boo birds to be even more vicious if their luck is good. JJ has officially become the most hated driver in NASCAR.
TheNASCARInsiders.com
Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!
