I'm not sure if you've heard this or not, but in 2009 Jimmie Johnson became the first driver to win four straight NASCAR Sprint Cup championships.

Okay, so maybe you already knew that (unless you are a non-NASCAR fan who accidentally stumbled upon this blog searching for information on Nolan Ryan and Willie McGee, and if that's the case, welcome!). You likely also know that Johnson led the series in wins (7), followed by Mark Martin (5) and three other guys: Denny Hamlin, Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch (4 each). I'm sure you also know who made the Chase, who didn't, and all of the other mainstream stats.

But that's not what we're discussing today. We're here to examine the final '09 stats pack not from the first page to the last, but the other way around. So, as we close the book on the final season of the decade, here are some numbers you may have missed along the way.

• Over the first two races of the season Matt Kenseth averaged a finish position of 1.0 and led 45.5 laps per start. Over the remaining 34 races he posted an average finish of 16.0 and 4.5 laps led.• Mark Martin was once a master qualifier, winning 39 poles from 1988-2001. Then, after a period of seven years in which he won zero poles, he won seven this year.• Martin's first career pole came on July 10, 1981 at the recently-closed Nashville Fairgrounds track. His most recent pole came at the Kansas Speedway on October 2, 2009. That's a span of 28 years, 2 months, and 22 days, or 10,311 days. During that time, AJ Allmendinger, Scott Speed, Brian Vickers, Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch, David Ragan, Reed Sorenson and Joey Logano were all born.• Heading into the 2009 season, Juan Pablo Montoya had posted five top fives and nine top 10s in 73 career Cup Series starts. This season alone he scored seven top fives and 18 top 10s. • Before 2009 Montoya had led 40 laps. This year he led 388. That's an increase of 870 percent.• A total of 42 different drivers led a lap this season. Johnson topped the chart with 2,238 circuits up front. Terry Labonte led only one, narrowly edging out Joe Nemechek and Jeremy Mayfield, who had two each, for least laps led.• In 2008, Carl Edward led 1,282 laps, third best. This year he led 164, which ranked 14th, just behind Martin Truex Jr. • Over the last two seasons Kyle Busch has led an average of 1,415 laps, second only to Jimmie Johnson. Busch's average points finish is 11.5. Johnson's is 1.0. • Sam Hornish Jr. led three laps in 36 starts, which tied him on the laps led list with Dave Blaney, who started six fewer races, and Scott Riggs, who started only eight. The good news is that he was up one lap led from '08.• Hornish was one of 31 drivers who started all 36 races. Of those 15, only Paul Menard failed to score a single top 10 finish. Five drivers with fewer 36 starts posted at least one top 10.• Blaney made 30 starts, finishing 40th or worse 27 times, including a streak of 14 in a row. His average finish for the season: 41.1. His total on-track winnings: $2.3 million.• Brad Keselowski made 15 starts, never finishing worse than 38th, leading nine laps, and winning at Talladega in April.• Since 1969 there have been 20 one-time Cup race winners. Seven of those one-hit wonders got their lone career win at Talladega: Richard Brickhouse ('69), Dick Brooks ('73), Lennie Pond ('78), Ron Bouchard ('81), Bobby Hillin Jr. ('86), Phil Parsons ('88) and ... Brad Keselowski.• The most overrated stat in NASCAR? Running At Finish. The proof? Three men led the league with 36 RAFs (they all had zero DNFs). Juan Pablo Montoya finished 8th in points, David Reutimann finished 16th and Casey Mears finished 21st. • This year we had five green-white-checker finishes, aka overtime races. In four of those races the car that took the green also took the checkers. The only guy to buck the trend was Kurt Busch, who passed leader Carl Edwards to win at Atlanta in March. Since the G-W-C rule was implemented midway through the 2004 season we've had 37 G-W-C finishes. The green flag leader has held on to win 30 times.• Jeff Gordon has yet to miss a race since making his first start at Atlanta on Nov. 11, 1992. His streak is now up to 581, one better than Bobby Labonte, who piecemealed his season long enough to keep his streak alive. They ranked sixth and seventh all-time and have the highest active streaks. The mark to beat is Ricky Rudd's 788.• Gordon also moved into sixth place on the all time list of top five finishes (263) and seventh place on the all time list of laps led (20,738).• Greg Biffle went winless for the first time since joining the Cup Series full-time in 2003.• Jeff Burton posted only six top 10 finishes and two top fives over the first 32 races of the year, then racked up four top 10s and three top fives over the last four races of the season.• Bill Elliott ended the season with 808 career starts, one behind Darrell Waltrip for sixth all-time. Michael Waltrip is eighth with 759, Martin is ninth with 758. • Carl Edwards won a series-best nine races in '08 and followed that up with zero in '09. That seems to be a trend. In '07 Jeff Gordon won six times, second best, and in '06 Kasey Kahne won a league-leading seven races. Like Edwards, they were both skunked the following year. Before then, the last time a driver had led the league in wins and went oh-fer the following year was Darrell Waltrip, who won six times in '89 and whiffed in 1990.• Richard Childress Racing's three teams combined to win three races, 21 top fives, 54 top 10s and three top six finishes in the points standings last year. This year RCR expanded to four cars, which compiled zero wins, 14 top fives, 39 top 10s, and no Chase participants. • The biggest points climb from 2008 to '09 belonged to Montoya, who finished 25th one year ago and 8th this year (Mark Martin doesn't count because he didn't run the full schedule in '08). • The biggest fall was posted by the reigning Rookie of the Year. David Ragan finished 13th in points in '08 and dropped all the way to 27th this season. The second biggest freefall was owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr., who went from 12th to 25th.• The 34 non-Talladega races this year averaged 17.3 lead changes. The two Talladega events averaged 58.5. Their combined 117 lead changes -- 57 in the spring and 60 in the fall -- were more than the two Bristol, Martinsville, Richmond and Phoenix races combined.