OPINION

By Jim Pedley

updated 1:47 p.m. ET Nov. 4, 2009

OK, now. Now you can start assuming that Jimmie Johnson will win this year's Sprint Cup championship.

Now you can start debating the significance of winning four-straight titles and start making the jokes about how he will be using the championship trophies as door stops in his house or as jack stands in his garage.

Now you can start giving Johnson and Chad Knaus and the No. 48 Hendrick operation their due.

The title is bagged.

But I think this not because of the fact that there is no other driver within 184 points of him and there are only three races left in the Chase and that those three races are all at Johnson's kind of tracks.

I don't think that because everybody in the garages, including second-in-points Mark Martin is saying so. Nor because Johnson has thus far not really shouted down anybody who says he has now put the 2009 Chase to bed.

I think Johnson is in because of what I saw at Talladega last Sunday. It was the same thing I have been seeing for the last three and 33/36ths seasons. It was Johnson driving in what appears to be a protective bubble.

Everybody knew heading into Talladega — heck, everybody knew heading into the Chase — that in order for anybody other than Johnson to win the championship this year, Johnson would have to run into trouble.

But everybody also knew Johnson simply does not run into trouble.

If there's trouble up in the front of the field, Johnson is in the back. If there's trouble at the back, Johnson is in front. If the entire field is swallowed up when a giant crevasse opens up on the track, Johnson is in the pits.

Johnson and Chad Knaus don't fear trouble. Trouble fears them.

The kicker Sunday came in the big crash near the end of the race. Cars are tumbling, smoke is billowing, sparks are shooting, dirt and grass are rising vertically out of the infield and at the end, the cars of other contenders are looking like they have gone through a giant Slap Chopper.

Through it all comes Johnson with a car that still has that freshly washed look that only the finest of auto-car products can produce.

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Johnson's fast cars I can understand. The driving skills I can understand. The flawless pit crew work is understandable. I could even understand last year's rainy autumn when dicey weather continued to put Johnson on race poles and in the best race-track pit stalls.

But his ability to continually be where trouble is not, this I do not get.

Score one for clean living?

Jim Pedley is managing editor of Racin' Today. Read more NASCAR news at racintoday.com.

SportingNews.com Johnson's run is historic—but it's not over NASCAR Number: 6 On this day ... November 23 Daily podcast from Rowdy.com: November 23 Johnson grabs 4th straight title; Hamlin wins race

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