Is Hendrick too big to fail?

            HOMESTEAD, Fla. – It’s wrong to brand this a disappointing season because Jimmie Johnson is likely to win the championship.

            Honor and glory abounds in the accomplishment. No one has ever won four straight championships. Not Richard Petty. Not Dale Earnhardt. Not Cale Yarborough.

            Not anybody.

            This has been a disappointing season because all of NASCAR’s carefully made plans, the ones designed to keep races close, championships in doubt and fans interested, have been foiled.

            But Johnson, crew chief Chad Knaus, owner Rick Hendrick and the team they have assembled deserve credit. They are doing what supposedly can’t be done. In an era in which NASCAR has dedicated its policies toward making everything equal, or at least more equal, the team at the top has, at least in the short run, turned the policies inside out.

            In 2002, when Johnson joined NASCAR’s top series, no one could possibly have predicted he would have:

n  Won three straight championships and be headed inexorably toward a fourth.

n  Won 47 races, 13^th best in the sport’s history.

n  Won 18 of a possible 59 races in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, devised in 2004 with the primary goal of making such domination impossible.

It’s remarkable. It’s unprecedented. It’s astonishing.

The difference between Hendrick Motorsports and the New York Yankees is that the Yankees, despite their incredible advantage in resources, have won one world championship in a span of nine seasons. Hendrick has won four (Jeff Gordon in 2001, Johnson in 2006-08) and all but nailed down a fifth.

Such performance at the top should lift the level of competition. It should make everyone else improve to face the challenge of the Hendrick juggernaut.

So far? Not so much.

            At present, it looks like Hendrick has cornered the market. It looks like it’s too big to fail. As the final race of the season approaches, Hendrick Motorsports looks a lot like Goldman Sachs.

You may contact Monte Dutton at mdutton@gastongazette.com.