with some vintage Vinsanity, | Forum

                                      HOMESTEAD, Fla. Cheap Wholesale Adidas Nmd Shoes . -- 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.Johnson was the dog of the championship contenders in a 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 worst of the final four for all but one lap Sunday night.Johnson was practically gifted his seventh title when Carl Edwards aggressive attempt to win the championship ended in a wreck that opened the door. Johnson got the restart of his life in overtime, took the lead on the last lap of the race, won for the first time in his career 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 its 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 wasnt as good as contenders Edwards, reigning series champion Kyle Busch or Joey Logano.Then all that conversation took a backseat to a record-setting -- albeit improbable -- championship run. The win was the 15th for Hendrick Motorsports and seventh for crew chief Chad Knaus, who now trails only Dale Inmans record eight.Johnsons No. 48 Chevrolet was seized by NASCAR shortly before the race for a last-minute trip through inspection, setting Johnson up for a mind-boggling race in which he never seemed to be a legitimate contender. He had to start last because of the inspection issue and was the worst of the final four, and he had no shot until Edwards coughed away the title.Petty welcomed Johnson to the VIP section of NASCARs 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 hes such a badass. Hes such a great race car driver. How he won this thing tonight, I dont think a lot of people know, he can will himself to get [his all] out of a car when it matters. Theres 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 carnage to take the championship lead.Johnson withstood two more restarts, and dedicated the final two attempts at the win to the late Ricky Hendrick, who was one of 10 friends and family members killed in a 2004 plane crash.My heart was full because I was thinking of some loved ones like Ricky Hendrick and his influence, he said. Something happened from above.Johnson drove the entire 10-race Chase with a tribute helmet to Earnhardt and Petty, the Hall of Fame drivers hes been chasing since he won his sixth title in 2013. Immediately after the race, he gifted 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 forever known as Smoke.I promised him Id give him a helmet; I wanted to wait and see if I could give him this one, Johnson said. He doesnt really want it. He said if I want it back, I can have it back, but I promised Id give him a helmet.The title was there for the taking for Edwards until the fateful sequence that changed history.He was leading when Dylan Lupton 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, so masterful on restarts for two years now, 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 pit road. Once there, he stopped at Loganos pit box before continuing a journey on foot through the infield to make the mandatory stop at the care center.He acknowledged 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 couldnt go to bed tonight and think that I gave him that lane.The beneficiary of Edwards error, though, was Johnson, who had darted through the wreck ahead of Busch and Logano. Knaus pumped his fists in joy, all too aware that they were suddenly in the game.Thats what makes a seven-time champion -- someone that fights and battles and digs and never gives up, said four-time champion Jeff Gordon, the teammate who discovered Johnson for Hendrick Motorsports. They keep themselves in position and allowed some of those unfortunate instances to work in their favor. You can say luck, whatever you want to say, but those guys battled. They battled hard.Logano wasnt giving up his effort, though, and headed to pit road to take on new tires for a final restart.This guy on a restart with five laps to go, Ill take him every day of the week, crew chief Todd Gordon said.Logano restarted eighth but was a bull as he pushed his way through traffic and into third place, behind Johnson, after a caution forced another restart.This time, Johnson got the start of his life and jumped into the lead. He didnt look back, only forward at his slice of NASCAR history.They were nowhere all day, and just kind of ran around, I dont know, probably, Id guess sixth, said Busch, who ended up sixth. Never really showed their hand at all and didnt really show any speed, never really led in the laps until the last one, and thats the only one that really matters. Cheap Adidas Nmd Wholesale . In taking its goal tally to 99 in all competitions already this season, City delivered another demonstration of its lethal firepower at Etihad Stadium to set up a fourth-round match at home to another second-tier team -- Watford. Cheap Adidas Nmd Shoes For Sale .Y. -- Syracuse has turned up the defence at the right time all season, and when High Point threatened to pull off a monumental upset the second-ranked Orange did what they do best with their quick hands and savvy play. http://www.nmdcheap.com/ . Its 1987 and a Brazilian playmaker, known as Mirandinha, is being paraded around St James Park to the passionate Newcastle fans. Vince Carter is no longer the NBAs highest flyer, though hes certainly not ready to be grounded.Once one of basketballs most ferocious dunkers who put opponents on posters long before there were internet Vines, he can no longer rely just on his athleticism. Nearing 40 years old, the guy who famously put his arm through the rim while winning a dunk contest now often plays below it.Like everyone who wants to keep playing toward middle age, its about the mind now as much as the legs.Thats how I was able to stay around this long, is just, I learned the game, Carter said. Not being able to play. Everybody can play basketball, but learning the ins and outs of the game is what has kept me around.Same with Manu Ginobili in San Antonio, Jason Terry in Milwaukee, Paul Pierce in Los Angeles and Dirk Nowitzki in Dallas, who follow Carter as the oldest players in the NBA this season.Basketball is a game a lot of people dont understand, Terry said. When you are not as athletically gifted, you still have your brain. I learned from none other than Jason Kidd.Terry plays for Kidd now, but they were teammates in Dallas when the Mavericks won the 2011 NBA title. Kidd by then was well past his dynamic days as a nightly triple-double threat, a guy who burst into the league with everything but a reliable jumper and left it at 40 ranked third in career 3-pointers.As I got older, the speed limit started coming into effect. Instead of going 55, I could only go 45, Kidd said. But, you know, when things started to go a little bit slower, you got to see things a lot better. For me, things were a lot clearer. As you get older, thats the best time to get better at the game. You can always learn, you can always do something different. For me it was shooting the ball. If I wanted to play for a while I needed to make an outside shot.Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant made similar transitions, outworking and outsmarting opponents when they could no longer just outplay them. Now Carter, who will turn 40 on Jan. 26 and ranks in the top 25 in career points and games played, does the same in Memphis -- where he surpassed Jordan this season as the oldest player to score 20 points off the bench.Like Jordan, he played at North Carolina for the mastermind, Dean Smith, as Carter called him, where even as a teenager he was being prepared for how he would need to play 20 years later.So he taught us how to learn the game, how to take your abilities and dominate to the best of your ability, Carter said. And with that being said, as Ive gotten older, just the little things that we tend to not want to do as a young guy stuck with me, as far as just the little thiings that we say a lot of guys make mistakes on. Cheap Addias Nmd. Carter acknowledges tiring of the endless play the right way mantra preached at Chapel Hill, but now he lives it. He cant just jump over players like he did to Frederic Weis in the 2000 Olympics , though he quickly earned the trust of first-time coach David Fizdale, who had Carter on the floor defending 21-year-old Andrew Wiggins to spark the Grizzlies comeback victory over Minnesota in their season opener.Again, Ive said this before, I dont put limitations on anyone because of age, whether its youth or because theyre one of the elder statesman, Fizdale said. Vince Carter, hes a veteran, hes a professional, he stays in shape. I always remind people he was the best athlete in the NBA, so his falloff athletically isnt the same as an average athletes falloff.Dallas coach Rick Carlisle said the key for players who are effective into their mid-to-late 30s is their work ethic, and he marvels at what the 38-year-old Nowitzki puts himself through to keep playing on legs that support his 7-foot frame, particularly in this season when hes battled an injured Achilles tendon.Medical enhancements have helped, with teams providing such improvements for their players that Mavericks owner Mark Cuban believes young players entering the league now should be able to play into their 40s if they have the talent.When I first got to the NBA, taking care of your health meant not eating Twinkies before a game, Cuban said. Guys would smoke cigarettes, theyd drink, there would be beer -- people sometimes would have a beer at halftime. There literally were bars in locker rooms. Things have changed.The things that we let players do 15 years ago that created inflammation and created orthopedic issues in their bodies, we know not to do as much anymore.Carter has prolonged his career by becoming a reserve for the last five seasons, and by resisting the urge to create the spectacular highlights that made him the leading vote-getter to the All-Star Game four times. The Grizzlies say hes questionable to play Wednesday in Toronto, his first NBA home, after hurting his hip Monday.He still gets the internet buzzing -- and occasionally surprises himself -- with some vintage Vinsanity, but mostly skips the unnecessary risks to preserve his body to get through the long NBA season.And how many more after this?I dont know yet, he said. Im still flying. Its not time yet.---AP freelance writers Joe DiGiovanni and Andrew Gruman in Milwaukee contributed to this report. 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