7 is coming and maybe 8 (or more).

Get used to it. Jimmie Johnson is going to be mentioned in the same breath as Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt from now on no matter how many more titles he wins. But, at this point, there's no reason to believe 6 is the end.

Is he the greatest ever? Maybe. He is certainly the greatest driver of this era; an era where NASCAR works to make the racing more equally competitive than it ever has been.

The simple fact is: it's difficult to compare different eras apples-to-apples. With the Chase, once you get a few wins early, you can run the season differently than you would if it were cumulative over 36 races. There are certainly more cars capable of winning any given week than there were, say, 20 or 30 years ago.

And, if you want to make the argument that it's all Chad Knaus; okay, all Richard Petty's titles were with Dale Inman on the box. Was it all Inman?

Whether or not you like Jimmie Johnson, know this: you are watching one of the greatest drivers ever when he's running. Years from now, you'll wax poetically, to your grandchildren about how you watched him race. You may even try telling them that their favorites can't hold a candle to what Johnson did.