March 17, 2009
By Nick Blake
For the second season in a row, Jimmie Johnson is nowhere to be seen among the top twelve drivers in NASCAR Sprint Cup points standings heading into Bristol Motor Speedway. But he is 13th, just 18 points behind Cinderella Man David Reutimann, for the 12th and final spot in the Chase. More importantly to him, he’s 177 points behind the leader, teammate Jeff Gordon. If the regular season were to end today, March 17, 2009, Jimmie would miss the Chase for the first time in his eight year career.
However the season doesn’t end today. For Jimmie and Team 48 it’s just starting. After a tough 24th place finish at Las Vegas, He had this to say: “It's only three races in. I'm not worried. I'm not stressed. I'm actually really optimistic and excited about the next few races."
Let’s backtrack on that for a second.
The season started with a dismal 31st place finish in the rain shortened Daytona 500. His third straight 500 finish of 27th or worse. (He finished 39th in 2007, 27th in 2008.) The very next weekend Jimmie showed signs that the three-time defending champ hadn’t lost a step, leading 74 laps before his car faded late during the last green flag run to the finish, resulting in a ninth place finish that had potential to be just another Sunday drive for Johnson, who won his first career race at Auto Club Speedway.
Then, Johnson led 92 laps and appeared to be headed for Victory Lane, but a rare mistake was made on a green flag pit stop. He overshot his pit. He caught a break when the caution came out seconds later for Jeff Gordon’s blown tire, which happened ironically when Jeff missed pit road trying to follow Jimmie.
After racing his way back from the mistake, Johnson was running in the top 13, just trying to salvage the best finish he could when he drove deep into Turn 3, drifted ever so slightly out of the groove, and the car just snapped around like a rubber band on a homemade slingshot and crashed into the Turn 4 wall. It was uncharacteristic of Jimmie to race as hard as he was late in the going, but it’s early in the season, I can understand that.
Utterly disappointed, Atlanta proved to be better, but not as dominate as his 2007 race there, where in the spring he led 135 laps en route to a victory, passing Tony Stewart in the closing laps. Johnson started 7th, and had a quiet afternoon. That’s only because Kurt Busch stole the show.
Finishing ninth for the second time this season, Jimmie moved from 19th to 13th in the points standings -- heading to Thunder Valley.
Unfortunately Bristol isn’t always friendly for drivers looking to gain points, or just drivers period.
In 2006, Jeff Gordon was bumped out of a top-five finishing position when he was spun by Matt Kenseth, resulting in a 21st place finish, while Kenseth finished 3rd. That’s a 65 point swing folks.
Last year, Tony Stewart appeared to have the Food City 500 all but won, but while leading with three laps to go, Kevin Harvick slid up the race track and collected Stewart, sending Tony from a potential win to a 14th place. That was a 54 point swing. And Bristol has never been great to Jimmie Johnson. In 14 Career Sprint Cup starts at The World’s Fastest Half Mile, Jimmie only has two top-fives, six top-tens and one pole (Last Spring). Despite four finishes of 30th or worse, his average finish is 17.4.
He admits his struggles at Bristol, and in an attempt to gain more track time, Jimmie made his Camping World Truck Series debut at Bristol last August driving for Randy Moss Motorsports. Even that didn’t go as planned. “Big Jim” as he was dubbed for the race, crashed halfway through the race and finished 34th. Ouch.
Still, Jimmie has that look in his eyes, the look that says “You haven’t seen anything yet”. Jimmie didn’t win his first race of the season last year until Phoenix, but with Jeff Gordon running as well as he has to start the year, it might not be long until Jimmie steps his game up. Martinsville and Texas are right around the corner, and I can assure you Jimmie can’t wait to get there.
Kyle Busch, Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth, Kurt Busch and Carl Edwards just might be the talk of the town for now, but just wait.
Jimmie Johnson and his beard are coming for the top spot.
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