Johnson Focuses on Positives in Face of Near-Miss at Richmond at LinesMaker

Johnson Focuses on Positives in Face of Near-Miss at Richmond

RISHMOND, Va. (NASCAR/Newsfeed) – Jim­mie John­son fin­ished a respectable sixth in the Cap­i­tal City 400 Sat­ur­day night at Rich­mond Inter­na­tional Raceway.

He felt like he passed enough cars to fin­ish much higher than that, though.

That’s because he did pass a lot, but it didn’t mat­ter because of a penalty he had to serve when his No. 48 Chevro­let pit crew failed him on a late stop. As John­son came to pit road on Lap 311, the cau­tion flag flew and it looked as it was all going to work to his advan­tage as long as he could wheel the car back out onto the track before the pace car came around.

But in their haste to make cer­tain of that, the 48 pit crew made a costly mis­take. The left rear tire that came off the car and was replaced dur­ing the stop was left aban­doned by the rear-tire car­rier. And, when the jack man rolled it across the width of the pit box, the team was penal­ized for it by a NASCAR offi­cial mon­i­tor­ing the stop. Rules clearly state old tires taken off a car dur­ing a stop must be car­ried at least halfway across the box before they are released.

Sud­denly, instead of pos­si­bly lead­ing the race or at least start­ing up near the front of the field on the next restart, John­son went to the tail of the longest line. He was scored in 15th, but actu­ally had a total of 36 cars between him and Tony Stew­art, who was lead­ing the race at the time.

“We had a cou­ple of lit­tle mis­takes like that, unfor­tu­nately,” John­son said. “We had a really fast race car. I wish they would give us ‘fastest’ points because I would have got a bunch. I think we were pretty equal with the lead­ers, the No. 18 (Kyle Busch) and No. 14 (Stew­art). We could have run third; we could have won the race.”

Instead, he set­tled for sixth. And he had to do some seri­ous dri­ving over the final 85 laps to earn that.

“It’s frus­trat­ing, but if you race in this sport long enough you get chal­lenged,” John­son said. “Even when a race is going well, I’ve learned to not expect for it to con­tinue to go well. Things hap­pen and that is what the dri­ver and the team need to be ready for. To cap­i­tal­ize on those moments and make the most of those moments, we did a decent job (Sat­ur­day night) to get back to sixth.”

It enabled John­son, a five-time Sprint Cup cham­pion, to move up one spot into sixth in the point stand­ings. He called it “a great, solid per­for­mance,” explain­ing that “we have been junk here the last two or three times. So, to come here and have a great night was very impor­tant for us.”

John­son said he long ago learned not to let pit-road mis­cues — espe­cially ones not of his doing — affect his focus in dri­ving the car. He also said the long green-flag runs that have become the norm this year on the Cup cir­cuit also force dri­vers to main­tain a laser-like focus — because at a .75-mile short track like Rich­mond, dri­vers can use up tires or brakes if they go too hard too early in such a run.

“Inside the race car you really have to man­age your equip­ment and take care of your stuff,” he said. “From the driver’s stand­point, I think it’s a lot of fun. There was a lot of hard rac­ing (Sat­ur­day night). I know there weren’t the cau­tions; but there was a lot of really tough rac­ing – a lot of smart racing.

“You see guys go a lit­tle harder at the begin­ning, use their stuff up, fall back. You just had to man­age your tires and be really smart with things and your brakes.”

In the end, John­son said while he was frus­trated, he wasn’t angry with his pit crew.

“We had a cou­ple of lit­tle instances there. But stuff hap­pens. It’s rac­ing,” he said. “Unfor­tu­nately we had a tire get away from us and had to serve that penalty and go to the back.”

He instead was more than just a lit­tle impressed with his car on the night.

“But the good news is we had a very fast race car. I guess last fall we were decent here, but this track has been real hit or miss for us. To have a car that strong and to pass that many cars all night long, I’m proud of the effort. I’m very thank­ful this Lowe’s car was that strong.

“I cer­tainly wish we didn’t have that mis­take – but when you’re in this deal long enough, mis­takes hap­pen. I just hate it when it lands on your shoul­ders, but I cer­tainly don’t want to beat any­body up.”

BetLM's sports betting news features unique sports betting articles as well as current sports news compiled from leading wire services. This arti­cle was dis­trib­uted by Syn­di­cated Sports news wire and aggre­ga­tion ser­vice, For more NASCAR rac­ing news see: John­son focuses on pos­i­tives in face of near-miss at Rich­mond.

Related Posts:

• Kyle Busch Scores Four-in-a-Row as Cau­tions Are Key in Richmond
• Busch Cap­i­tal­izes on Cau­tion for Rich­mond Win
• Edwards and Stew­art Leave Rich­mond Unhappy
• John­son Gets Wild Dur­ing Qual­i­fy­ing at Kansas
• Kyle Busch Could Use Rich­mond Boost

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