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The Luck Of The No. 48 Team Is Astounding

An Opinion



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March 26, 2012

By Kim Roberson

Kim Roberson


What is it about the No. 48 team that seems to give it such luck?

If you were to ask an average race fan what team seems to have the biggest lucky streak in NASCAR, I think most of them would claim it was Jimmie Johnson’s. It began at the start of the week as the Chief Appellate Officer in NASCAR, John Middlebrook, overturned the penalty handed down to the No. 48 team in Daytona, removing the 25 points and suspensions of both crew chief Chad Knaus and car chief Ron Malek, leaving only the monetary penalty of $100,000 (and really, is THAT a penalty? If you ask me, it is just a donation to NASCAR Charities, which I think is a win-win situation for the team and the charity.)

While I think it might be a little extreme in comparison, Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet, made the following comments about the change in fate for the 40 team.

"(The appeal process) is a platform for everybody to state your case, and sometimes you win and sometimes you lose just like in the court of law. It's really no different than that. It's no different than watching a case like OJ (Simpson), and watching OJ go free. Watching that case, there's no way you thought that was going to happen. Then you see the verdict, and then it happens. It's very similar to that. Sometimes you think something is cut and dry, and you think this is going to be the verdict, and the next thing you know it's not. You move on and you go to the next one. But there is a platform for the teams to present their cases to a board, and obviously to the last step they took this time to present it again. I've been involved in it before from the team ownership side, and you prepare no different than you would going to a court case. It's literally the exact same process."

Only Harvick could find a way to compare Jimmie Johnson and OJ Simpson.

Along the same lines, Jimmie Johnson made somewhat of a “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” analogy this week in Fontana when discussing the verdict.

“Through the appeal process, we proved those C-posts were legal. I can't explain anything, but I can tell you the reason we won the appeal is we proved those C-posts were legal -- If we didn't prove those C-posts were legal, we wouldn't have won the appeal.”

As if the overturn on appeal of their penalties wasn’t enough of a check in the bonus column for the No. 48 team, then came race day.

As storm clouds rolled in and rain started to sprinkle the track, the No. 48 car pulled down on the apron of the track as white smoke began to appear from the tailpipes. Amazingly, judging by the radio chatter, neither the driver nor crew chief had any idea they were leaving a trail of oil and smoke on the track.

“You’ve got oil leaking somewhere” was the original comment from Johnson’s spotter, Earl Barben, over the radio. “We do?” was Johnson’s response. “Yeah,” came Earl’s reply. “What makes you say that?” asked Knaus. “Well, because the 17 (driven by Matt Kenseth) told us we did, and there is smoke coming out of the back of (the car),” explained Barben.

Can’t argue with that, can you?

Despite the fact he was dropping his oil on the track (a situation which normally brings out a black flag for the car involved), Johnson stayed out as the rain continued to move in, maintaining his 10th place position until the cars were called to pit road with 71 laps to go in the race and put under a red flag. As drivers climbed out of their cars, several reporters tweeted that there was a “puddle of oil” forming under the Lowes Chevrolet.

Johnson joked about the mixed prayers he was offering as the final laps of Sunday’s race played out.

“It’s just a wild change of events because when I came to pit road and took four tires, I wanted it to dry up real quick,” he said after the red flag Sunday. “Now I’m sitting here praying for rain. As I’m sending these signals to the man upstairs, he is really confused as to what I have been asking for in the last three or four minutes.”

It seems that the “Golden Horseshoe” that Kevin Harvick claimed was in an indelicate position in Johnson’s posterior at this same track back in 2010, and which had reportedly vanished last season, has found its way back to the No. 48 team.

Will it stay, or will the No. 48 team’s luck fail as the season goes on?

Only time will tell.

Follow Kim on Twitter: @ksrgatorfn




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The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.

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