It wasn’t the day the three-time Sprint Cup Series champion was hoping for at Texas.  After coming into the 33rd race of the season with a 184-point margin over second place Mark Martin, Jimmie Johnson saw more than half of his points lead disappear on Sunday.

Johnson’s tough day started one lap three, when David Reutimann got into the back of Sam Hornish Jr., sending the former IndyCar Series driver into Johnson as they exited Turn 2 of the 1.5-mile track. As the cars progressed down the backstretch, it appeared Johnson had his Chevrolet under control.  However, Johnson continued to slide, eventually into Hornish to send the two of them into the wall.

“(The) 77 (of Hornish Jr.) lost it,” Johnson said after the race.  “I wish (he) could have waited a few more laps before he lost control of his car. … wish I wouldn't have been around the first time.  Definitely it took us out.  Not much we could do.”

Johnson’s car was badly damaged, to the point that crew chief Chad Knaus began to call his driver out of the car and for the crew to begin their duties of packing it up for the day.  Upon further review, however, the crew decided to work on the car to try and salvage as many points as possible.

The No. 48 team had to make a host of changes—including a new rear-end housing, front and rear end body as well as a new water cooling device among other things.

A little more than an hour later, Johnson returned to the track while running in the 43rd position, 112 laps down, as the leaders started lap 116.  He returned to pit road for a left-front tire rub two laps later.  Johnson fought to keep up with NACAR’s minimum speed—which required drivers to run at least a 33.27-second lap—early on.

Johnson was able to finish 38th after a few other cars, including fellow chase contender Carl Edwards, fell out of the race due to accidents.

The El Cajon, Calif. native’s points lead is now just 71 points over teammate Mark Martin, who finished fifth in the Dickies 500.  Fixing the car to get back out on to the race track saved the team 18 points as they picked up six positions worth three points apiece.

Johnson’s shortened points lead means that he is going to have to work a little bit harder to get his fourth consecutive Sprint Cup Series championship.  For instance, Martin can take the championship away if he has two perfect races by leading the most laps and winning.  He would still need help from Johnson, though, who would have to finished outside of the top-four for Martin’s scenario to work to his favor.

Nonetheless, Johnson still believes that he is in a good place as far as the points go with two races left before the 2009 Sprint Cup Series season comes to a close.

“We're still in a great position,” Johnson said.  “Like I said, we'll dust ourselves off.  There's really not much we can do, (but) reflect back on this, say it was a bad car, a bad pit stop or something I did wrong.  We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Wrong place at the right time, depends where you want the points to go (laughter).
So it was just one of those things.  We'll go to Phoenix.”

Johnson has fared well at Phoenix, the next track on the schedule.  In 12 Sprint Cup Series starts at the Arizona track, Johnson has scored three wins, seven top-five and ten top-ten finishes.  When compared with other tracks that Johnson has raced on in the Sprint Cup Series, Phoenix is his second-best track as far as average finish goes with a 5.4 average.  His best is his average finish of 5.1 at Martinsville.

However, he hasn’t fared as well at the season finale races at Homestead-Miami Speedway.  In eight starts at that track, his average finish of 13.6.