2009 Checker O'Reilly Auto Parts 500: Jimmie Johnson Holds the Title Lead at Phoenix

Jimmie Johnson won the Checker O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Raceway on 15 November 2009, starting from third on the grid. He beat Jeff Burton by 1.033 seconds in a race that featured nine lead changes and kept his title hopes firmly alive.

Why did the Checker 500 matter?

The race was the thirty-fifth of thirty-six scheduled Sprint Cup events in 2009 and the ninth of the ten Chase races. With only the Ford 400 finale still to come, the title was effectively being decided by the drivers still in contention, and every position at Phoenix carried weight.

Johnson's seventh win of the season was also his forty-seventh career victory, and it confirmed that he had the best record of any driver across the year.

Jimmie Johnson's seventh win of 2009 at Phoenix kept his Chase title lead firmly in place.

What was the title picture before the race?

Johnson topped the Drivers' Championship on 6,297 points, while Mark Martin was second on 6,224. Jeff Gordon was third on 6,185, which put him fifty-nine points ahead of Kurt Busch and ninety-eight ahead of Tony Stewart. Johnson's advantage was narrow enough that the race mattered greatly.

Only Johnson, Martin and Gordon were realistic title contenders heading into Phoenix. Johnson held a seventy-three point margin over Martin going into the race.

What had happened the week before?

At Texas Motor Speedway, the Dickies 500 had cut Johnson's margin over Martin by one hundred and eleven points, leaving him just seventy-three ahead. Johnson had been caught up in a crash three laps into the race and finished 38th, while Martin came home fourth.

Johnson said he remained confident, calling his 73-point advantage very healthy. Martin said he would not change his approach, and he insisted that the title was still not decided.

What did the Phoenix track look like?

Phoenix International Raceway is a short track of about one mile (1.6 km), with four turns. Banking is eleven degrees in the turns, three on the front stretch and nine on the back stretch, which has a dogleg rather than a straight. Teams often adjust their setups between practice and the race, and Phoenix made those adjustments especially important.

Teams had to balance their cars for both the turns and the straightaways, so overall balance mattered as much as raw speed.

How did practice go?

Rain washed out the Friday morning session, leaving only two sessions on Saturday. The first ran for 45 minutes and the second for 60, which gave teams limited time to refine their cars. Kahne also brushed the turn-two wall in the second session, leaving the right side of his car with light damage.

Sam Hornish Jr. was fastest in the first session with a lap of 26.889 seconds, ahead of Kasey Kahne and Kyle Busch. In the second session Johnson was quickest with 27.201 seconds, with Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr. close behind him.

How did qualifying set the grid?

Forty-six drivers entered qualifying on Friday evening, and forty-three were allowed to race. Martin Truex Jr. set the fastest time at 26.643 seconds on his first timed attempt, which gave him a third pole of the year and a fourth in his career.

Kurt Busch qualified second beside him, while Johnson took third, Kahne fourth and Hamlin fifth. Biffle, Kyle Busch, Stewart, Mears and Martin rounded out the top ten. Regan Smith, Kevin Conway and Brandon Ash failed to make the field.

Truex said the team had been good in practice and had found the extra time in qualifying that he had hoped for.

Who led the early laps?

Truex started on pole and held the lead into the first corner, but Kurt Busch passed him on the same lap. Martin started tenth and fell to eleventh on the first lap, and Hornish moved up to seventh by the fourth lap.

Johnson did not take the lead until lap 54, when he passed Kurt Busch as slower traffic impeded Busch. From that point Johnson began to build a gap, and by lap 60 he led by 1.5 seconds.

How did the middle of the race play out?

Green-flag pit stops ran from the 65th to the 73rd lap, and Kurt Busch got back in front once that cycle finished. Johnson passed him again on lap 90, using Reed Sorenson to draft past, and he held the advantage through the next stage. The leaders spread out, and Johnson's advantage began to look comfortable.

A caution for debris on the 115th lap saw most of the leaders pit, and the restart on lap 120 was disrupted when Michael Waltrip damaged his car and Brad Keselowski was hit from behind. Johnson held the lead through that restart as well.

Johnson's lead grew steadily through the middle of the race. By the 134th lap he was 1.5 seconds ahead, and two seconds clear by the 138th.

What happened in the closing stages?

On lap 162 a piece of debris brought out another caution, and some leaders chose to pit. Johnson kept the lead on the restart on the 169th lap, but a multi-car collision on the narrow front straightaway, which began with Earnhardt Jr. losing control, took out several cars.

Earnhardt went to the garage with an oil leak, while Vickers and Labonte retired from the race. Johnson rebuilt his advantage to 2.3 seconds by the 186th lap, and by the 203rd lap he had a 3.4-second cushion over Kurt Busch.

Johnson's lead reached 4.3 seconds by the 215th lap, and he was close to five seconds clear of Kurt Busch by the 222nd. Burton then moved up to second, passing Hamlin late in the race.

Who finished where?

Johnson won, Burton finished second, and Hamlin was third. Martin took fourth and Truex fifth, with Kurt Busch, Bowyer, Montoya, Gordon and Reutimann completing the top ten. Johnson was the only driver to lead for more than a handful of laps, which made his result stand out.

Johnson held the front for 238 laps across four separate spells. The race had four cautions, and the lead changed hands nine times among four drivers, with Johnson finishing 1.033 seconds clear.

Who else was chasing the title?

Montoya was eleven points ahead of Biffle before Phoenix, with a total of 6,061 points. Hamlin was on 5,975, two ahead of Newman and seventy-seven clear of Kahne in the standings. Those margins meant that a single weekend could change the order completely.

Edwards and Vickers were eleventh and twelfth, on 5,857 and 5,777 points, and they were the last drivers on the Chase list. Their places depended on how the final races unfolded. Each of those points mattered in the final standings.

What did the broadcast and ceremonies look like?

The race started at 3:15 p.m. EST and was televised on ESPN, with Jerry Punch calling the play-by-play alongside Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree. About 90,000 spectators attended, and the weather was sunny as the cars lined up. The pre-race ceremonies were brief, and the race began on schedule.

Phoenix chaplain Ken Bowers gave the invocation, and singer Tyrese Gibson performed the national anthem. Senator John McCain then gave the order for the drivers to start their engines, and the field lined up without any car being sent to the back.

What went wrong for the drivers who fell back?

Earnhardt pulled into the garage on the 179th lap after an oil leak, and Vickers and Labonte retired soon afterwards. Gordon dropped to tenth after those retirements, which showed how quickly positions could change in the late stages. Those problems came at a critical stage of the race.

The multi-car crash on the restart had collected several cars, and the damaged machines headed to pit road while crews cleared the debris. Those repairs cost several drivers valuable track position at a critical stage.

Why did Johnson's win matter for the title?

The victory extended Johnson's lead in the Drivers' Championship to one hundred and eight points over Martin in the standings, while Gordon sat one hundred and sixty-nine points behind him. Johnson now had the best record of any driver in 2009.

Gordon was not in a position to claim the title once the season-ending Ford 400 began a week later. The lead gave him a solid cushion for the final weekend. It also set up a comfortable position heading into the last race at Homestead.

What did the drivers say afterwards?

Johnson said his team had felt a great deal of pressure, and that the race had been a chance to show what they could do. He said he would spend the night thinking about his qualifying setup for the final weekend. Gordon's remarks suggested that the team was still searching for the consistency it needed in the final races.

Burton praised new crew chief Todd Berrier, saying the team had done a great job in the pits. Hamlin said Johnson's problems had been caused by an incident the week before rather than by poor performance, and he predicted the team would be a strong force.

Gordon said the team had started the race well, and he wondered what kept producing the good starts that were not converting into wins. Martin, who finished fourth, said the team still had to beat Gordon in Homestead.

What did the standings look like afterwards?

Johnson's 6,492 points left him at the top, with Martin one hundred and eight points behind and Gordon one hundred and sixty-nine back. Gordon's margin over Kurt Busch was forty-two points, and Stewart was one hundred and sixteen behind him.

Chevrolet kept the manufacturers' lead with 256 points, while Toyota was second on 198 and Ford third on 161, six clear of Dodge, and the broadcast drew 5.17 million viewers.