Continued from part 1
CHAD KNAUS:
Yeah, I didn't have a whole lot on Jimmie leading up to that
point. When you're in the Cup Series and you really get engulfed in what it
is you're trying to do, it's difficult to pay attention to the Nationwide
Series because the races are going on while you're racing or while you're
working on your cars and stuff and you don't get to see a whole lot of them,
so I didn't watch a lot of what was in the Busch Series that much and didn't
really know Jimmie at all. I had known that he had won Chicago because that
was my hometown and it kind of stuck with me for some reason or another.
And Jay Guy, who was one of my best friends, he introduced us when we were
in Homestead. We were sitting on Jay and I were sitting on the wall, I
think it was for qualifying, and Jimmie was walking down to start the
Nationwide race or something like that, and Jay had stopped him and pulled
him over to the side and said, hey, man, this is the guy you need to have
for your crew chief. He did it kind of in a joking manner. Jimmie didn't
know who either one of us were. So that was our first encounter.
But when we had lunch we hit it off. We talked about motorcycles and a lot
of different things, and it's been fun ever since. I didn't know if he had
any talent. I didn't know if he could drive at all. He didn't know if I
knew what I was doing at all.
It's something we both kind of discussed early on and said, this is our
shot. You get kind of one opportunity in life to make things happen, and
this was our opportunity, and we both dove in headfirst and believe in one
another, and here we are.
Q:
For both Jimmie and Chad, just a race specific question. I know that
there seemed to be some tension kind of creeping in you, Jimmie, during the
course of the race and other certain instances, Bowyer running up on your
door, and that created some tension. Of course there might have been
getting through some guys, getting past guys. Was the specter of Texas
still haunting you when you saw the 77 come up on you on that restart?
JIMMIE JOHNSON:
Yeah, it doesn't matter if it's practice or the race, the
77 and I just don't seem to flow together. I don't know why. It's been
that way for a long time. I saw him again tonight, and I'm like, man, I've
got to get out of here.
Tonight things went smoothly. There was no issues. But the 42 left the
bottom of the racetrack and came right to the fence like he was clear, and
he was not clear. And I had to check up both times and it cost me like six
spots every time it happened. One time I was in second and it took place,
and heck, before I got back to the outside lane and recovered from what went
on, I lost a bunch of time.
And then Bowyer, I guess he was wanting to keep up front in clean air, and
we were driving, taking my lane, and then I finally got inside of him and he
had been running the top, and he came down and just sat on my right rear
quarter panel through three and four for a couple laps, which he hadn't run
that line the ten laps I was behind him. So I was like, why now? So yes, I
was frustrated, and after a few hand gestures and maybe some spotter
communication, things went smoothly after that with the 33.
I don't think he was trying to be a pain in the butt, he was just racing for
every inch that he could. I definitely was a little revved up tonight. I
wanted to keep my eyes on winning the race and having a shot at it, and
track position was so important. I just felt so good in the car and really
knew that I had a shot at winning the race tonight and wanted to take
advantage of it.
Q:
As a follow up, is that why you radioed to Chad?
JIMMIE JOHNSON:
Yeah. I mean, I could see two or three cars in front of
me, and I knew how fast I was catching them. I could at least get to them.
I didn't realize that the leader was another step ahead of that. I thought
that was it. I wasn't sure where we were running.
Q:
This was a question I've wanted to ask you for a while, but Christine
threatened me by death if I asked you before tonight. A lot of us have
called Jeff "Four Time" for a long time. I'm wondering now, what do we call
you, what do we call him? And my second question is Dustin the other day
asked you a question about what else do you want in life, and you really
talked about, hey, all my life, this is what I've wanted. You didn't really
talk about what you want later or next. Chad wants a son, a daughter, to
retire, a wife, hair. I'm wondering, what do you want?
JIMMIE JOHNSON:
Um, I don't know what you can call us. I'm sure you guys
can think up some good names. "Four Time" has a nice ring to it. I don't
know. I'm sure we'll come up with something. Maybe I'll make a fool out of
myself tonight, and we'll have a good one after that.
As far as what's next, I mean, I just I mean, I signed a new contract, so
it just seems I haven't thought much about it, to be honest with you. To
me, it's like I've signed through 2015, Cup level, Lowe's is on board, it's
just what we do. We're just going to keep racing.
Q:
Don't you have something in your head like I want to be 50 and sitting
here doing this?
JIMMIE JOHNSON:
I have so far blown past those marks that I'm just sitting
here like, okay, well, let's try it again. I hope to win a race at the Cup
level was my goal want when this whole thing started and I was racing ASA,
and I felt like probably even before that, if I could win a Cup race,
that was my goal. And then that happened. I keep readjusting. So I never
thought I'd be here.
You know, I'd love to win more championships or more races than what anybody
else has done, but I'm not sure how realistic that is. So I don't have a
good answer for you. I'm trying to recalibrate.
I feel like I'm driving and doing the best job I've ever done in the race
car, and I hope that I can stay in the sweet spot for a period of time and
really continue on. But I haven't thought much about it because I keep
blowing by the stuff that I've set for goals.
Q:
Were you aware there was going to be some payback between Montoya and
Stewart, and did you have to make a mental note to yourself to stay clear of
that situation? And can you also maybe speak to the knack that you have,
other than at Texas this year, for really not putting yourself in the wrong
place at the wrong time?
JIMMIE JOHNSON:
Yeah, I could tell Chad had said something to our
spotter that the 42 was back out on the track and said something about the
there was some casual conversation that I figured out that there might be
something coming. For two laps maybe or a lap and a half, I could see two
red cars kind of crossing paths and a lot going on. I just started slowing
down. I figured something was going to happen, and sure enough, it did. I
had some time to get slowed down and get out of harm's way.
What was the other question?
Q:
Your knack for not putting yourself in the wrong place at the wrong
time.
JIMMIE JOHNSON:
I'm not sure where it comes from. I think I look pretty
far ahead on the track is helpful, and a lot of guys run tape or have
different things over the windshield to block the sun out, and I'm always
cutting that stuff out so I can look further down the road. I think where
my line of sight is, just looking down the road is helpful. Outside of
that, I don't know. I wish that I had seen it in Texas, though. It was
close.
Q:
After the race when you were sitting in your car, I think, in turn 2
waiting for the platform and everything to be set up, you said on TV you let
your mind wander a bit. Can you talk about where you let it wander to and
what you were thinking of while you were sitting there?
JIMMIE JOHNSON:
Just where I started, riding around in a 1979 Ford van with
a little eight foot enclosed trailer behind it going to motorcycle races
around the country and sitting there on turn 2 after winning your fourth
championship. So there's just a lot of little things that came into my mind
from when I was a kid riding dirt bikes. I thought about my first four
wheel experience, first time I drove a stock car.
I was telling Kenny Wallace, thinking on the back stretch over there that my
first race in ASA car was in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and I was fast, but I
didn't know how to pass anyone. And I was on the radio trying to ask the
crew chief, how do I pass. He goes, man, I don't know; I set the car up,
it's your job; you've got to figure that part out. I just didn't know how
to pass anybody; I'd follow them around and I didn't know what to do. So
there was a lot of memories like that flipping around my mind, just kind of
tripping out sitting there on turn 2.
Q:
You were talking about how you can't pass people back then, how you've
done what nobody else has done. Petty didn't do it, Earnhardt didn't it do
it, Allison didn't do it, on and on, Yarborough didn't do it. Be honest;
where do you stack up?
JIMMIE JOHNSON:
I think it's up there. You know, the fact that nobody has
done this, I think it puts me near the top. I certainly look at the seven
championships by both Earnhardt and Petty, their race wins, their being in
the sport for the number of years and all that they've done, those two guys
are kind of at a draw at the top.
Hopefully my stats and win totals and championship totals can rival theirs.
But it puts us up there, it really does. And the cool thing is we're not
done yet. We've got a lot of racing left ahead of us. So hopefully we can
improve on that.
Q:
What you just said obviously leads to this question: Is there any
reason for us to think that you're not going to win seven, eight, top that
record? And you've talked earlier about blowing past all your goals. Is
that now a goal, to beat those two guys?
JIMMIE JOHNSON:
It is a goal. I'm not sure how realistic it is. I guess
it's tough to really understand because of the way the last four years have
gone, and at times based on questions and discussions, we make it look easy
or different things. But it is so, so difficult to compete in this sport.
And what we've done is truly amazing, and the fact that it's never been done
before speaks to how difficult this task was to win four in a row.
I don't know if we'll win another championship. I have no idea what next
year will bring and what the challenges will bring as the years go by.
There's just no guarantees on that. I feel in my heart we'll be
competitive. But at some point in time we won't be that team. We're going
to do everything we can to make sure we are that team. But you just never
know what the future holds.
Yes, I would love to win seven, eight championships, and me saying that,
it's like Gordon saying he wants to win seven or eight. Of course we want
to do that. But is it a realistic thing at this point in time? The level
of competition we have in the sport, I don't know. But we're sure as hell
going to try.
Q:
This came up last night with Kyle Busch. The second place guy in
Nationwide had enough points to win the championship five out of the last
six years, even considering how good Kyle was. When you look back at your
last four years, what is more impressive, the fact that you've won four
consecutive titles or the performance that has been required to win those
four consecutive titles, considering the people who have finished seconds
and the stats that they have put up?
JIMMIE JOHNSON:
I don't know. They kind of, I guess, melt together in my
head in some ways. There's been discussion about I think it was a couple
weeks ago that I haven't had someone like Earnhardt, as Gordon did. But as
I've thought about that some more, I think of all the guys that have raced
for championships, and we all consider Stewart one of the greats, Gordon one
of the greats. I've raced both those guys for championships. Then some
very, very other tough ones, Mark Martin this year.
So I feel that what I am most proud of looking back on, obviously the four
championships, those are amazing. But when I look in Chad's eyes and my
guys' eyes, what we did during those four championships and the way we raced
and how we raced for it, I'm most proud of that for sure. I don't know if
that helps with the answer, but it gives me the last three years gave me
so much confidence going into Phoenix, knowing that, okay, we've got last
week at Texas, we're coming here, now it's time to show what we can really
do, and we did it. In those moments, it's so cool to pull it off, so I'm
proud of the fact that we can do it.
CHAD KNAUS:
I think I agree 100 percent. Obviously the achievement of
winning four championships is awesome. But the week in, week out battles
that we go through to try to win these championships is so difficult, and
it's difficult on everybody on the team, and for us to be able to rally in
times when we are struggling and come back and pull off wins and top 5s, and
Pocono this year we were a lap down and we have a miss we were three laps
down, whatever it was, and we came back and were able to pull that stuff
off, I think it speaks volumes about what this team is capable of doing.
As you guys know, I pride myself on our team being prepared and ready for
action at the drop of a hat, and I think that those guys do that. I think
that if the chips are down and we have to do massive adjustments to the race
car to try to get the speed out of it to extract whatever it is we need to
extract out of it, they do it. And I think that speaks volumes, and I'm
proud of that. I'm proud to be a part of it.
Q:
For both Jimmie and Chad, do you remember all the victory lane
celebrations, each race that or are there things that are a little bit of
a blur? Are things a little hazy as you're going through these runs? And
Chad, I think I saw you with a little hand held video camera at the end
there. I was wondering if you had planned to record this or if that was
if you recorded anything else during the week.
CHAD KNAUS:
I got that last year when we were in New York for the banquet.
I took some video of that when we were up there cruising around New York
City and doing all that stuff and it was a lot of fun, and then I took it on
vacation with me last year, and I haven't used it since. It's still
actually got the same videos on it. I called Lynn Hess, our office
administrator, yesterday, and I said, hey, go into my office and get that
little flip video out of my briefcase and bring it down here to me. So I
charged it today and I gave to one of my engineers, and I said, here, don't
give me this until there's five laps to go and we've got this in to a
position where we think we're going to be able to seal it off.
Five laps to go, he walked up and he handed it to me, and I wanted to record
it, because I think just like what you said, I don't enjoy what we do enough
in the moment typically, and I don't do a good job of keeping records and
memorabilia and things like that. I don't have a big a whole bunch of
clippings and all that stuff. I just don't keep that stuff.
I knew this was going to be a big deal, and I wanted to be able to have
something to remember it by, because even through all of the stuff that's
going on, and it's a bit of a whirlwind, you forget, and I wanted to try to
document it a little bit.
JIMMIE JOHNSON:
What Chad said is totally right. It's tough to remember
some of the different things. What's fun is when you sit around with the
crew guys and stories start coming out, and it helps bring that back. But
I've done a decent job with collecting things and clippings and trying to
document stuff a little better than Chad. And I look forward to I've
been saying I haven't watched or read anything. Next week when I get home,
I look forward to going back and watching all the stuff and reading the
articles, certainly the stuff that comes out of this weekend. It's time to
catch up.
Continued in part 3
