Johnson takes aim at fourth consecutive win
An age-old NASCAR lesson has helped Jimmie Johnson to three consecutive victories and boosted the fourth-year Nextel Cup driver back into the championships picture with three races remaining.
“Knowing how long our races are, having patience at the beginning of the race and continuing to work on the race car and communicate and not get frustrated has been the key,” Johnson said Friday. “We’ve had to work on our cars each and every race in the last three that we’ve won, and we got it right at the end when it counted.
“It’s a lesson we’ve been through before but, for whatever reason, certain lessons keep surfacing: If we’re not the best car in the beginning, it doesn’t matter. You just keep working on it.”
The consecutive victories at Charlotte, Martinsville and Atlanta have brought Johnson charging back from ninth place, 247 points off the lead after crashing in the Kansas race on Oct. 10, to second place, 59 points behind Kurt Busch.
A victory Sunday in the Checker Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Raceway in Avondale, Ariz., would make Johnson the first driver to win four in a row since teammate, friend and car owner Jeff Gordon did it in 1998.
Johnson’s charge, combined with the first slip by Busch since the 10-race Chase began, has injected some real drama back into NASCAR’s new championship format.
Thanks to Busch’s blown engine at Atlanta, where he wound up 42nd – the first time he finished outside the top six since the Chase began – the top five drivers are bunched within 98 points with only Phoenix, Darlington and Homestead remaining on the schedule.
Four-time champion Gordon, four-time series runner-up Mark Martin and fan favorite Dale Earnhardt Jr., who beat Johnson in last year’s race, all remain solidly in the hunt coming to Phoenix, where there have been 14 winners in the 16 years that NASCAR has raced there.
Gordon, who has wins at 19 of the 23 tracks on the Cup schedule, has never won at Phoenix.
“We always seem to run well, here,” he said. “We just haven’t closed the deal.”
Gordon trails Busch by 72 points, but a win Sunday could go a long way toward earning him a fifth championship.
Junqueira has fast first day
Bruno Junqueira used new springs and soft tires to run the fastest lap on the first day of qualifying for the Champ Car finale in Mexico City, shaving a point off Sebastien Bourdais’ championship lead.
Junqueira’s fastest lap was 114.539 mph, compared to 114.204 mph for his Newman/Haas teammate.
The point earned by the Brazilian driver raised his total to 314 – 21 behind Bourdais – and guaranteed him a front-row start for Sunday’s Telmex-Tecate Grand Prix.
Starr wins truck race
David Starr won the NASCAR truck series race after dominant Ted Musgrave fell out of contention with a flat tire at Phoenix International Raceway.
Musgrave appeared to be working his way back into the championship battle in the Craftsman series before his right front tire let him down in the Chevy Silverado 150.
Instead of a victory for Musgrave and a three-man title chase over the last two races of the season, the championship probably will be decided between Bobby Hamilton and Dennis Setzer.
Starr did hold off the Chevy truck of Jack Sprague in a 10-lap sprint following the last of six caution periods, beating the runner-up to the finish line by 0.297-seconds – about three car-lengths.
It is Starr’s third career victory and second of the season.