HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Jimmie Johnson had the commemorative helmet and a photographer chronicling his every move. He even ran a symbolic 7 miles the night before his shot at a seventh championship.
He must have known something special was coming, even though it didn't look that way for most of the winner-take-all season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
He needed only to beat three other drivers to tie Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt as drivers with seven titles, but he was the slowest of the final four for all but one lap Sunday night.
Johnson was practically handed his seventh title when Carl Edwards' aggressive attempt to win the championship ended in a wreck that opened the door for Johnson.
He got the restart of his life in overtime, took the lead on the very last lap of the race, won for the first time at Homestead and grabbed that elusive seventh title.
"I had this crazy calmness over myself all day long leading into this," Johnson said. "Even with us running fifth and the championship looking like it's not going to be there, I just felt something."
Most of the race was spent talking about backflips, repeats or a Penske sweep because Johnson just wasn't as fast as contenders Edwards, reigning series champion Kyle Busch or Joey Logano.
Then all that conversation took a back seat to a record-setting -- albeit improbable -- championship run. The victory was the 15th for Hendrick Motorsports and seventh for crew chief Chad Knaus, who now only trails Dale Inman's record eight.
Johnson's No. 48 Chevrolet was seized by NASCAR shortly before the race for a last-minute trip thorough inspection, and it revealed an unapproved body modification and Johnson was forced to start the race at the tail of the field.
He never seemed to be a legitimate contender for most of the race, and was the lowest of the final four, and appeared to have no shot until Edwards coughed away the title.
Petty welcomed Johnson to the VIP section of NASCAR's most exclusive club.
"They set a goal to get where they are and circumstances and fate made it a reality," Petty said. "Jimmie is a great champion and this is really good for our sport."
He was also feted by Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr., who represented his late father in victory lane.
"I told Jimmie I wish Dad was here to shake his hand," Earnhardt said. "Dad would think he's such a bad-ass. He's such a great race car driver. How he won this thing tonight, I don't think a lot of people know, he can will himself to get [his all] out of a car when it matters. There's a lot of circumstance that played into it, but he put himself in that position."
Edwards was in position to win until a caution with 10 laps remaining set up a wild sequence that ruined his title hopes. Edwards tried to block Logano on the restart, wound up wrecked, and it was Johnson who drove through the wreckage to take the championship lead.
Johnson drove the entire 10-race Chase with a tribute helmet to Earnhardt and Petty, the Hall of Famer drivers he's been chasing since he won his sixth title in 2013. He gave the helmet to three-time champion Tony Stewart, who retired at the end of the race.
Drivers have been giving Stewart special helmets the past month, but Johnson had earmarked this one for the driver known as "Smoke."
"I promised him I'd give him a helmet, I wanted to wait and see if I could give him this one," Johnson said. "He doesn't really want it. He said if I want it back, I can have it back, but I promised I'd give him a helmet."
The title was there for the taking for Edwards.
He was leading when Dylan Lupton's crash brought out a caution with 15 laps remaining, and it forced Edwards to hold off the competition on a restart with 10 to go.
Logano tried to dart around Edwards on the bottom. Edwards refused to yield and tried to fend off the move by blocking Logano low. Contact between the two sent Edwards hard into an interior wall, then all the way across the track for a second hit. He had been the most dominant driver of the Chase contenders, but was left with a wrecked car.
"He came down right in front of me," Logano said on his radio.
Edwards stood on the track and watched the replay of the accident, and appeared to mutter "damn," hands on hips, before he began a long walk to Logano's pit box. Once there, he stopped at Logano's pit box before continuing a journey on foot through the infield to make the mandatory stop at the care center.
He said he was aggressive protecting his position from Logano.
"I was racing for my life up to that point," he said. "I just pushed the issue as hard as I could because I figured that was the race there. I had to push it, I couldn't go to bed tonight and think that I gave him that lane."
Sports on 11/21/2016