Snoop Dogg, summer slumps & beating rivals: An oral history of NASCAR championships

Jimmie Johnson: I really think it was the teamwork that went into it. Over the 10-race stretch — and then my last championship was in the current format — it’s just such a grind, and so many variables are thrown at you that it’s not just the driver that gets it done. Pit stops, great cars and strategy. I think of a variety of different championships that we won where there are different elements that came into play. So, really the teamwork.

Joey Logano: I always felt like when you look at 2018, we had so much speed that year that really helped. But also, I think just the confidence that you carry is so important. And I felt like we had that in 2020, and we really did everything we should have done to win in ’20. We just had this one screwy set of tires that will forever haunt me, that shook the car and all that. It was just one of those things that it wasn’t our year for whatever reason. But 2022, we brought the same confidence and that was it. We knew how to go out there and win. And we did it.

Jeff Gordon: Just staying really close to the team. When the team’s in sync and you’ve got confidence in one another, things just seem to be flowing and clicking and good results seem to be coming at the right time. Overcoming obstacles or challenges seem to be a little bit easier, and I think that when you’re in sync with your team, the camaraderie is there, just everybody’s got the right attitude going into every race. I don’t know if it was something that I necessarily did, it’s just that’s what I felt in those championship years.

Is there anything or an event that you could pinpoint as a pivotal moment during your championship season?

Tony Stewart: One of the pivotal moments that stood out was in the ’02 championship, and we just practiced and tested good in Homestead, and then went down for the race, and it was like the wheels fell off. And during the race, we didn’t have the balance we needed. We got a lap down, and I remember restarting next to my buddy Dale Jarrett [at that time, lap-down cars started on the inside beside the lead-lap cars, a way for them to potentially get back on the lead lap — when NASCAR went to double-file restarts, it instituted the free pass rule for the first car a lap down since that ability to get it back was removed] and he’s trying to win the race. He’s on the lead lap. I’m trying to salvage it because I’m racing Mark Martin, who is on the lead lap. And if I get a lap down and stay a lap down, I can’t improve positions and gain the points I need. And I remember on that restart, it’s like we were talking to each other without talking to each other. I mean, Dale knew when I took off on the restart that I wasn’t saving tires, that I was going 100 percent and he gave me enough room to go because he’s in self-preservation mode. As far as I was concerned, he didn’t want me making a mistake that was going to cost him. So he let me get [back] to the lead [lap], and like I said, I didn’t take care of tires. He went back into trying to win the race mode, and the leaders were taking care of their tires, and I ran like I was a bat out of hell with my hair on fire. And luckily, we caught a caution. That’s what we had to have happen. But that was one of those moments. I feel like the pivotal moment in the 2011 championship, after all the drama that happened in that race, was the moment that Darian Grubb gets on the radio and tells me, “I need you to save fuel” and I’m literally five car lengths behind Carl Edwards at that point, and he’s leading the race. I’m running second, and I have to pass him to win the race and win the championship. And I remember that call on the radio, and I sat there for a second before I made any changes driving the race car, and I called on the radio, I said, “Are you sure?” And he goes, “Yes, I need you to save fuel.” And hearing the tone in his voice gave me the confidence to do what I was asked to do. But it was one of the hardest things I think I’ve ever had to do in a race car, is sit there and start lifting and saving fuel and watching Carl’s car get smaller and smaller as he pulls further and further away.

Jeff Gordon: In ’95, Chevrolet brought in the new Monte Carlo and we knew just from preseason testing and wind tunnel testing, that car seemed to have all the ingredients of what we needed to elevate our performance. But now we’re going to have to go race against Dale Earnhardt, and at that time Gibbs was Chevrolet with Bobby Labonte and also Sterling Marlin and Morgan-McClure was solid. So we still had our work cut out for us, regardless of where the other competitors were at with Fords and Pontiacs and all that back then. But we start off the season and either feast or famine. It was either lead a lot of laps and win — we had the pole and dominated Rockingham early in the season, very similar at Atlanta and Bristol. So when we were on, we were on in a big way and earned a lot of points. But when we were off, we were 35th, 36th, 30th. We finally got into a summer kind of rhythm where we’re starting to put consistent finishes together and actually built up a nice points lead, until we got further into the season, about three-quarters of the way, and had a nice, comfortable lead. … We had a couple good finishes late in the season. I think one of them was at Darlington, and then at that point it was just maintain the lead. … By ’97, we were more of a complete team. I think I was more of a consistent driver. … What I remember about ‘97 is just how even the competition was between Mark Martin and Dale Jarrett — we all were just, just trying to one-up one another all year long and that’s why it came down all the way to the final race of the season between the three of us, which was pretty rare back then, but it did happen. There’s a lot of pressure on all of us. We did have a points lead, but it wasn’t a big points lead going into the final race at Atlanta that year. And then it was cold, they had sealed the pit road and the track, and it was slick, and I made a mistake [in practice] on pit road trying to scrub my tires, get some heat in them before I got on the track and completely destroyed our primary car, which was a fast race car, and we had to go to a backup. And back then, backups were not the same as they are today, and we just struggled. We were 17th at best. We had a tire issue in the race. And I really saw the championship going away from us that day. It was just the most stress in a race, especially a race for the championship, that I had ever dealt with. We were able to pull it off. I don’t know how because it was just a disastrous weekend. The ’97 with the championship being so close, and kind of faltering in that last race and almost losing the championship, it really was one pivotal moment because I think we doubled down as a team [in 1998]. We were like, “You know what? Next year, we’re going to be on fire from the start of the season to the end.” And it just seemed like it lit a fire underneath us. But the next pivotal moment was we were having a solid start to the season, we’re winning races, we’re leading laps, we knew that we had a car and a team that could, could dominate, could win the championship. But we got to the Richmond spring race and Rusty [Wallace] and I had a heck of a battle. … I made a move where I was going to get by him and had a car that I think could win that race that day, and he wasn’t having it, and so we drove down into Turn 1, he drifted up the track on purpose. He wrecks me and took us out. And that absolutely motivated the 24 team. We went on an absolute tear from that race forward. I think it was something like 20 straight finishes of like, seventh was our worst finish. But if you looked at firsts, second places and [the 19] top-5s [in 20 races] all the way to the end of the season, I still think it’s probably one of the greatest runs, certainly in my career, but possibly in NASCAR history. So go check out those stats. They’re pretty amazing. Thank you, Rusty. In 2001, I always go back to the year before, because I feel like things that happened the year before is what builds your team and what builds the momentum, and maybe can be the energy that gets your team through the offseason to come out strong the next year — 2000 was just a tough year, it was a real growing year for me, for Robbie [Loomis, the new crew chief replacing Ray Evernham, who had gone to Dodge], for the whole team, and we just couldn’t get it to click. And the performance wasn’t there. The wins weren’t coming, [had] some controversy with a manifold at one race. Nothing was going right, but something must have had a spark at the end of that year because we went into the offseason really focused, working strong together as a team. Robbie and I really were starting to click and build our relationship, and we came out in 2001 and it just immediately looked like it was a year that we could win another championship together. And I was doubtful. I’ll be honest, from the year before.

Joey Logano: I think when you look at it, if you look at the 10-week window, it’s easy to look at Martinsville in 2018 [winning the Round of 8 opener] that propelled us into the championship round. And then it’s also easy to look at Vegas in 2022 that put us in there [the same way]. Both of them, a couple weeks before everybody else got to do it, right? We were the first locked in. So you got a couple weeks head start on everybody. It gives you two weeks head start to start looking at one race while everyone else has got their tongue hanging out trying to get in, and they’re focused on multiple things. When you can put 100 percent of your focus in one race, when they have to put it over the course of three weeks, that’s a huge advantage.

Jimmie Johnson: There were a lot of times that either at Phoenix or Martinsville, something shifted in our favor. I think of wins at Martinsville. I think of a good finish in Phoenix that kept us in the hunt against Denny [Hamlin] in 2010. Either Martinsville or Phoenix, there was something that always went our way that gave us a chance. Even for my seventh championship, I won at Martinsville [to open the Round of 8] and that’s what got us into the final four and gave us a shot at it. When I look at the calendar, we’d always get off to a quick start and then a great finish. And that summer stretch was always really tough for the 48 car. So during our championships, I was so happy to have the calendar in the order that it was — it really, really worked in our favor. Martinsville is historically a great track for Hendrick Motorsports, so a great place to work from. I just couldn’t [initially] figure it out. We tested time and time again. We ran a couple years of races and until I was lapped by Tony Stewart [in 2002] and followed him, then the light bulb went off. I didn’t necessarily finish great that day, because I was down a lap. But the next time back, I was driving the car the right way around the track and success came.

Chase Elliott: It was really a solid year overall. When I think back about the season, we had a handful of wins, but also had a handful of races that I thought we had opportunities to win. So we just had a solid year, was in contention a lot, and made it count right there In the final weeks.

Kevin Harvick: Phoenix [in the second race of the year]. We felt like, that was obviously our first win of the season, our first win with SHR and the organization, so for me personally, I felt like that was kind of that ace in the hole because of the fact that I’d had so much success at RCR, and we had already won there together as a group — and to go back there, we expected to win, and we knew that our cars were fast enough, and really at that point, all we had to do was put the pieces together and not make any mistakes throughout the day. And we were able to do that. By the time we got to Homestead, the hard part was done, and that was just getting to Homestead. But we’d had our backs against the wall several times, and had that championship moment the week before. [That second Phoenix win] with the way that the first half of the year went, with all the failures and us getting that straightened out, we were really able to capitalize on the speed in several of those situations. I’d never won a championship. We’d won races, but I think every time we won in those moments, when we went to Charlotte, we went to Phoenix, in those must-win situations, we came out of those events with more and more confidence and obviously that led into the end of the next several years. We learned a lot about ourselves pretty quickly in that season, because you get put right into the end of the limelight when you have the fastest cars and you’re not winning races, and things are things are happening. And so we had a lot of — [crew chief] Rodney [Childers] included — just guys that hadn’t won a lot of races and hadn’t won a championship like myself included. And so to be able to put yourself in those championship-winning moments and accomplish those things makes you learn pretty quickly that you can do it.

How did your championship change you, if at all, personally or as a driver?

Jeff Gordon: I know they changed my life forever — big events like the Daytona 500, the Brickyard, 400 and championships, that kind of molds your career and your future and where you’re at with your team. Winning that first championship in 1995 was just huge because not only were we going up against the greats at that time, but Dale Earnhardt, Sr, one of the best of all time. And to be able to go toe to toe with he and Richard Childress Racing and actually pull that championship off, from that point on, it just felt like, “All right, we have a car and a team that can do this every year.” Even though that wasn’t necessarily the case, it certainly was a string there for about four or five years that we were one of the top teams and went into every race feeling like we could win it, and every season that we could win the championship because of what we accomplished in ’95.

Jimmie Johnson: Championships, without a doubt, have had an influence on my life. In ’06, we had two [in 2004 and 2005] get away — it was just such a defining moment in my career to win a championship that I think I started to breathe a little easier after I was able to do it. And to put five in a row together — and the amount of focus and dedication it took for all of us — really helped me double down on my work ethic, accountability, and really kind of shaped my professional career in that way. I would say our sixth championship was probably the most fun I’ve ever had in the course of a season, just nice and relaxed. And then, the seventh championship to tie Dale [Earnhardt] and Richard [Petty], and then with everything that was built in and around Ricky Hendrick and the dedication to his life and how much seven meant to him and his personal experiences, the experiences I had with the Hendrick family, that went just very deep for me.

Joey Logano: I don’t think it changed me. In a way, it’s giving you — relief isn’t the right word, because you always want more. It’s not like there’s comfort of any way. But it’s just cool to know that you’ve done it, right? Just to say the NASCAR champion title — to introduce yourself as that, or someone introduces you as that, that’s really hard to achieve, and a lifetime goal for so many. So to hit that mark, it didn’t change me, but it’s just one of those things that I feel like if I didn’t accomplish that, I forever would be a little like feeling like it wasn’t enough.

Kevin Harvick: Personally, it just allowed me to move on from the question of, “Is this the year you can win a championship? Can you win a championship?” The reason that I went to Stewart-Haas Racing was to win a championship. At that time, I felt like you needed something that had an H in it — and the H being for Hendrick — to have the resources and horsepower and all the things that come with that alliance. Going to Stewart-Haas Racing, the ownership allowed me to have a lot of say in what we did and who we did it with and all the things that came with the race team. The pieces of the puzzle are hard to put together, and when you can put all those things together — I went to Stewart-Haas Racing to win a championship because I hadn’t in the scenario that I was in at RCR and for me personally, to accomplish that in the first year, it just allowed you to focus on something else instead of being so, so honed in on just one championship and that question. Obviously, we didn’t win another one, but we had lots of opportunities to do that.

Tony Stewart: I don’t think it changes anything, honestly. You’re proud of the moment, but it’s kind of — we always joke about when you go to playoff situations and countdowns [in NHRA] and playoffs and everything of saying, “Don’t change what got you to the dance.” And it really is that way. Winning those championships. it puts you in elite groups of people, but it really doesn’t change who you are deep down inside. It changes you to everybody else’s perception. But when you get home, you’re still the same person.

Chase Elliott: I don’t know that it has really changed me, personally or as a driver. I think those things just happen over time, whether it be with age or experience — and time being in the sport probably more than any one particular accolade.

Was there anything more difficult you felt about the aspect of winning it during the time(s) that you did?

Kevin Harvick (2014, first elimination-style playoffs with one-race championship): The elimination piece of it just really added a layer of pressure that none of us had ever dealt with before with the rounds and resets and kind of those moments. That generation of race cars — I’ve been fortunate to drive a lot of generations of race cars — but to live through the high downforce, high horsepower, high speeds, just everything that came with that car, the body situation was kind of an outlaw situation at that particular time with all the rocker panels flared out, sides pulled out. It was a crazy time to drive the cars because they were so fast, had so much grip. You still had the Jeff Gordons and the Tony Stewarts and the Jimmie Johnsons — I’m glad it was still during the Jimmie Johnson era because that was such an Achilles heel for so many of us because of all the success that Jimmie and Chad [Knaus] had at Hendrick. So to be able to do what we did during that time really said a lot for where we were from a competitive side.

Jeff Gordon (1995, 1997, 1998, 2001 all with full-season points system): I only know what it’s like to win a championship in that sense and in that format, because you had to do it for the whole season. If you had a bad race at a Daytona or Talladega, which were always the wild cards, you could rebound from it. But I would still say those were the biggest challenges are those types of tracks. It seemed like we had a lot more failures back then — tire failures, part failures, and so I feel like there was a lot of pressure on the team to really make sure that those things didn’t reach out and bite us. We probably lost a championship or two along the way in those ‘90s because of it. But same thing for me, not making mistakes on my part. We didn’t have the double-file restarts so when double-file restarts started [iin 2009] coming into play, that just made the challenges that much greater.

Chase Elliott (COVID season, 2020): I don’t necessarily know that it made it more difficult. To me, the competition was the only thing that felt normal about the year, which was good because even though you had all this stuff going on behind the scenes and the atmosphere at the race track was a lot different — when you got in the car and you got going, everything was business as usual, which I think we all kind of needed at that time.

Joey Logano (2018, 2022, both current system): You can never get a lead. It’s really hard to get a lead in this format, right? You can earn one through the playoff points, and you can get a little bit there, but if you get a bigger one, it gets washed out when you get to the next round. And when you get to the Championship 4, it’s completely washed out. You have no advantage over anybody anymore. So you never get a lead to where you can just coast it in. So many times in the past with the old playoff format, you get to the final race of year, the final two races a year, and you have a 35-point cushion, it’s cruise control. I don’t know the fans really want to see that either, but it’s a different approach than what we have now.

Jimmie Johnson (2006-2010, 2013, 2016 with the final one the current system but without stage racing and playoff points): The eras, what really stands out to me the most is stage racing [introduced in 2017]. Qualifying has never been my strength, and long races with strategy that would play into it, long green flag runs, green flag cycles on pit stops, all of that really played into team strategy and how to make stuff happen. Plus, my talent behind the wheel and the way I drove the car, managed tires, it would also help me dig myself out of a hole if I didn’t qualify well. And as soon as we went stage racing, man, it just got — the multiple is high and the difficulty that it brought to my success and the 48. … The [tweaks to] formats didn’t seem too impactful until [after] the seventh when stage racing and the full playoff system was in. What a lot of people joke about is the rules kept changing, and some say it was to try to keep us from winning another championship, but all of that created an opportunity. And at Hendrick, we had all the resources we need and had the greatest minds working on the team. That, to us, we always welcomed it. It was an opportunity to be the first to figure something out. So through all the car generation changes, we smiled and enjoyed it.

Tony Stewart (2002, 2005, 2011 with two different point systems): The formats. In [2005 and 2011], it was a format of 10 races and 10 drivers [in 2005, in 2011, it was 12 drivers]. Before that, it was literally off of every race counted. Every race mattered. The way it truly should be.

What was your best celebratory moment, either kind of party or interaction with someone after winning the championship?

Jimmie Johnson: In our seventh championship, we had Snoop Dogg play our championship party for Hendrick, and that was world–class. He put on a great show and just a ton of fun. Spent some time with him. He was so gracious and stayed in the party afterward, just socializing and hanging out. He was great. He’s so comfortable with being himself. It’s phenomenal. It just flows and can transcend all age groups, which is amazing. He would light Mrs. Hendrick up, put a smile on her face, and then turn and talk to whoever. He’s just cool that way.

Tony Stewart: The common denominator in all three of those is they say I had a good time. The rest of it is a little bit blurry.

Kevin Harvick: The best part about that party is I didn’t want to have a traditional banquet party where they had it at a big club and there was loud music. So we went to the 300-person country bar across the road, and we had Jake Owen come and perform. And he didn’t bring his band. He played with the house band. He forgot his shoes. He showed up barefoot, and we went and bought these diamond bedazzled spiked shoes that we bought him that night to come perform. He wound up not wearing them anyway. And the house band that they had at the bar — and I think we broke two or three wrists on the mechanical bull — and had a great time. That afterparty with Jake was a lot of fun.

Jeff Gordon: I certainly will always remember going to David Letterman and being on that show and sitting in the green room and running into different celebrities and even interacting with David Letterman. He’s a big race fan. And one time, Dave couldn’t make it back to the green room after the show. And he had said, “Hey, I’d like to catch up with you after the show, if you don’t mind waiting around.’ So I did. Something came up. He couldn’t do it. So I left. And he called me at home the next day and apologized for not being able to make it. But also we had a nice conversation just about the sport and racing and being on the show. And that was very cool.

Chase Elliott: Just the whole experience after the race in Phoenix, not only winning the championship, but also winning the race — those two things combining into one. It’s just that whole experience from top to bottom, I tried really hard to soak all that in and enjoy every little moment that came after that, even the things that you might not enjoy typically. I think that after a day like that, and a couple weeks like that, you find ways to just embrace all of it because it’s a true honor to win and to be able to carry that forward.

Joey Logano: I will always remember going to David Letterman [after winning the 2015 Daytona 500] and being on that show as so special. I always remember getting out of the car in 2018, the first time and just getting out and seeing everybody. And it’s always the most special moment is the first time you see the people you love, the people you went to battle with — those are the ones that just mean so much to see them at first, and it’s usually just a hug. You just want to give them the biggest hug and just make that moment last forever. It’s so hard to achieve that. And so, I think of 2018 and seeing my wife and my parents for the first time, that was always a really special one. And the second time, getting the flag with my son out there on the racetrack, and then give him a ride around the racetrack, it brings tears back to me just thinking about it. It’s so cool to get to experience that together we’ll forever have those pictures and those memories. Those moments are so special.

Do you relish the championship(s) you won, or stew over the ones that got away?

Joey Logano: Both. Both go through my mind constantly. They both do. There’s the ones, some of them just sting. They sting forever, because I look at it and you go, “Gosh, you’re a two-time champion, that’s great.” Every time someone says that, I go, “Should have four.” One of them, we really got beat. The other ones. I think, “Gosh, man, we were in position to really do it, like we were right there, like, should have four — one little thing changes, should be four of them.” And I’m sure there’s so many other drivers that can say the same thing — shoulda, coulda, woulda. But that’s just what goes through my mind every time I hear it.

Kevin Harvick: I think where I’m at now, I cherish the one I won just because of the fact I understand how hard they are to win. In that moment, you look at them as “Man, we screwed this up or that up.” But with the format, the way that it is now, they’re just difficult to win because somebody can get hot at the right time. We had better years than we did in 2014, but it just didn’t line up at the at the right time toward the end of the season. We won a ton of races, which was the main goal and focus of what we did to try to keep putting ourselves in position for championship stuff. Yeah, you always want to go back and say, “We could have done this different or that different,” but I’m so far removed from that now that I’m just happy that we got one.

Jeff Gordon: I certainly relish now stepping away from the sport and looking back on my career. I relish the wins, I relish the championships, a lot of great moments and memories that will live with me forever. But it’s also hard not to sometimes be reminded because of FOX or NBC or NASCAR or somebody putting these videos out there to remind me of things that happened at Texas, to remind me of things that happened at different tracks and races along the way that were not so good. You’re always going to wish that you had a few more wins and a few more championships if the opportunities were there. And they were.

Chase Elliott: I certainly enjoy our championship, but I probably most look forward to just the next challenge because I think there’s a lot of road left to run here, and a lot of opportunity out there for us. So I think I just have my sight set on “what’s next” right now, and I think that there will come a time where you can really sit back — when you walk away and all this stuff is done, I think that is really a great opportunity to sit back and enjoy, hopefully, a lot of accomplishments and a lot of good years, if you’re fortunate enough to have them. So I’m more just kind of excited about what’s next.

Tony Stewart: You relish the ones that you win. I think it’s hard not to. I don’t think we really had any of the championships that we finished second, we were close and didn’t finish it [in 2001, Stewart was second at 349 points behind Gordon]. So I don’t know that we have that feeling. I think you always, especially at the end of your career, you focus on the ones that you got, not the ones that got away.

Jimmie Johnson: I can’t stew over the ones that got away. I’ve been so blessed with seven championships. I do recognize that there in ’04 and ’05, we legitimately had a shot for it, but I wouldn’t change a thing. Things are as they need to be.

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.