Jimmie Johnson heads to familiar Phoenix in good shape
LAS VEGAS — Jimmie Johnson gambled Sunday afternoon in Las Vegas. It did not pay off, but he affected the Kobalt 400 in other ways, which proved his pull and prominence.
Along the way, the veteran driver who is knotted with two legends atop NASCAR’s most prestigious chart with seven career titles displayed savvy by salvaging points in the first two stages to keep him in the game on the mile-and-a-half oval at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Now it’s on to funky Phoenix Raceway, a 1-mile track featuring an odd dogleg. Johnson won four times in a stretch of five races at Phoenix, between 2007 and 2009. Kevin Harvick won twice before Johnson’s spurt, and six times since, so he remains the driver to beat there.
Brad Keselowski, whose 89 laps led Sunday were bested only by victor Martin Truex Jr., leads all Cup drivers with 132 points, but he has never won in Phoenix.
“We’re coming (to Phoenix) with a different car,” Keselowski said of his No. 2 Ford. “We haven’t been very good there. It’s been a track we’ve struggled with.”
His fellow Team Penske driver, Joey Logano, won in Phoenix, which has played host to a pair of annual NASCAR races since 2005, in the fall.
“That race is super, super critical, specifically in the fall, to having a shot to win the championship,” Keselowski said. “We continue to run better as a team as NASCAR takes downforce off the cars, but that track has a lot of unique challenges that really makes it so much different than anyplace else we go, with the dogleg and the flat banking in one end and the wide corner on the other. And the asphalt there isn’t like any other track we go to, so it’s a pretty big challenge.”
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If there’s anything too challenging, Johnson, 41, might be the one to assist his foes. He doesn’t shirk that responsibility. He did over the weekend in Las Vegas, after 13 pit-row speeding penalties were racked up by drivers the previous weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Late Friday morning, at the end of an exclusive interview with USA TODAY Sports, Johnson said his next stop would be to discuss those pit-row speeding issues with NASCAR officials. Specifically, he wondered why the location of those 14 timing lines would be kept secret until race day.
In a move that veteran LVMS officials called unprecedented, those specific spots were revealed, courtesy of Johnson’s intervention, Saturday. At that practice, drivers could adjust their cars’ computers and hit their spots in a less-tense environment. Sunday, only three pit road speeding penalties were assessed.
With the introduction of stage racing this season, in which points are doled out in three stages, Johnson garnered seven points in Sunday’s first stage and 10 in the second. He totaled 31 points.
From laps 216 to 228, he was low on fuel and needed to hit the pits, but he stayed out, hoping a caution would slow the action and enable him to capitalize with a better position out of pit road. It didn’t happen.
Johnson owns seven Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season championships, tied atop the career chart with Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Richard Petty.
With stage racing and the pit road issues and new tires and the weakening of downforce, changes are manifold and constant. Johnson was asked if he ever harkens back to the sport’s seemingly less-stressful beginnings.
Does he ever daydream about those pedal-to-the-metal days of Junior Johnson, Freddie Lorenzen and Ned Jarrett?
“Kind of,” Johnson said. “But, just in my career of 16 years, although there are more rules and more things to worry about, we’re still just trying to find an advantage.
“Every year there are new rules, and at every track we come to there is a little different tire. … We just get used to chasing a moving target.
“Sure, it’s more complicated now. But even back in Junior’s era, and I don’t know vividly what those issues were, those guys were chasing a target, too … they were responsible for working on the car (too). They (the drivers) were one of the two or three full-time (mechanics).”
