March 22, 2010
By Ron Felix
It must be a great feeling, know that you can go out and win a Sprint Cup race at will.
That's exactly what it looked like to the dwindling NASCAR fans, what few of them that are left. The grandstands at Bristol Motor Speedway looked like swiss cheese -- there were so many empty seats -- at Bristol, say what?
Before the Food City 500 at Bristol on Sunday, Jimmie Johnson was so confident in his ability and his car's ability -- that he told his crew to get the champagne ready. How's that for an "In your face" attitude?
CIA Stock Photos
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Johnson Does Standing Burnout
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Johnson held off Tony Stewart, who himself was under seige from Kurt Busch. It was Johnson's first victory at Bristol -- his third win this year and the 50th victory in 296 career races. Johnson is now tied with Junior Johnson and Ned Jarrett for tenth on the all-time win list.
"Yes, it has been one of the most difficult for us," said Johnson in Victory Lane. "It is so great to set some goals and go out and accomplish them as a race team. I am so proud of what we have done as a group. We've been off here (Bristol) over the years. We focused on what we needed to do and got it done today."
Johnson made all the right moves on a final restart with 20 laps to go. He restarted seventh but most of the cars in front of him only took two tires and the seas naturally parted (so to speak) and he took the lead with seven laps to go and made it look easy. Johnson claims that it wasn't easy for him.
"Man, we have worked so hard for this. I thought we were in trouble there but those four tires were everything and I was in the outside lane, which was helpful," said Johnson. "All those times we had all of the Lowe's executives here and we ran terrible and crashed on lap three and all that stuff, I wish they were here now.
"This Chevrolet was awesome. About time, man. I am so proud of this team. I am so proud of us setting a mark and going at it and accomplishing what we wanted to."
Kurt Busch, who had led the most laps, 275 of 500, and finished third, was bitterly disappointed in the loss to Johnson.
"We were solid all day. We just got beat at the end on the luck of the draw on restarts. That’s what our sport is about…luck on which lane is going to go," said Busch. "I don’t’ know, I’d rather lose to any of the 41 cars out there than the 48 car. I thought we had them beat. I gave it my heart today, but came up short. We did well at Bristol. It was a great day for our Miller Lite Dodge. It’s a shame we didn’t bring it home for a victory.
“We thought four tires was the way to go. I’m really proud of Steve Addington. We gave it our best effort. I’m beginning to think the Busch Brothers can’t drive that good; it’s all about Steve Addington. I give him the credit. I gave it my heart today. To lose to the 48 sucks, but that’s the way it goes. We fought hard.
“These are tough to lose," Busch continued. "This is a track that I feel competitive on. We definitely had a car to beat today. We just ended up in the wrong lane for that last restart. We would have been better off if we had lost a spot on pit road and started up on the outside. It’s just the luck of the draw. We had it won, but we didn’t drive our car into victory lane. I poured my heart out, trying to beat the 48 and then to lose to them, that’s what is upsetting."
Greg Biffle battled his way to the fourth spot, Matt Kenseth was fifth and Carl Edwards took sixth place.
Biffle was one of the driver that took only two tires on the final restart.
“I didn’t make the call, Greg Erwin did, but I think it was the right one," said Biffle. "Yeah, we could go back and do it over again with four and see what that does, but (we were) really, really fast. I was just too loose. If I would have been like I was earlier, or if the car had been driving like it normally did, I think I could have held them off –- I really do –- but I was just so loose I couldn’t put the power down. The back end was sliding."
Biffle and Mark Martin got together on lap 342 and the result was a 13 car pileup.
I owe an apology to Mark Martin," Biffle said of the wreck."It sounds stupid because everybody makes an excuse, but I was having trouble with my radio. That whole run I didn’t have a radio and I didn’t know he was on the outside of me and I ran him into the fence. I feel bad, but I didn’t know he was there.”
Rounding out the top ten were Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jamie McMurray, Kyle Busch and Jeff Burton.
Unofficially Kevin Conway leads the Raybestos Rookie standings by 30 points (44-14) over Terry Cook. Conway has captured top rookie honors in all four NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races this season.
“We finished all 500 laps at Bristol which I think as a Raybestos Rookie to make it is an accomplishment to some extent," Conway said. "We dropped a cylinder really, really early on and then we ended up losing I don’t know how many other cylinders [smiles]. It felt like an ol’ Goody’s Dash car. We finished. We just had to survive and hope that the motor would last."
Cook made his first-career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series start in Sunday’s Food City 500. He was sidelined midway through the race with mechanical problems and was credited with a 37th-place finish.
“First of all, we’re very pleased just to be in the race," Cook explained. "We started having brake pedal fade on that long green flag run prior and I had to pump the brakes and pump the brakes. Maybe it’s just our lack of not having run enough races to know how to cool the brakes but then on that last long green flag run the brake pedal went to the floor.
"I was riding around the top trying to stay out of the leader's way and it got to the point where I had so little brake I knew I was going to get into a wreck or cause somebody to wreck or we were going to wreck one of our cars. We pulled behind the wall and kind of surveyed it but the brake pads were shot, the rotors were shot. It boiled all the fluid out of the calipers so at that point it was time to call it a day.”
The Sprint Cup Series moves to Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Virginia -- next Sunday, March 28, for the Goody's 500, the sixth race in the Chase for the Championship.
The race will also be broadcast live on MRN Radio and SIRIUS Satellite Radio Channel 128.
Jimmie Johnson was the winner at Martinsville in 2009 and has won five of the last seven races at the half-mile track.
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