Johnson looks to turn season around in Texas

 

The No. 48 glowed brightly atop the scoring pylon, first in practice and then in qualifying. When the skies cleared and the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series finally returned to the track on Saturday, Denny Hamlin led Happy Hour but Johnson ran fifth just .146-seconds behind.

 

Could this finally be the weekend that the seven-time champion quiets his critics?

 

“We’ll see on race day,” Johnson said. “I feel like over my career good Fridays mean good Sundays. I’m thankful to have just raw speed in the car and I think it’s that. And we’ll have to see how it works in traffic. I think at Las Vegas we had a car capable of really performing well on Friday and we got in race conditions and dirty air and didn’t have exactly what we needed. 

 

“To have all three cars up there in the top three positions, and I think Alex (Bowman) would have been right there in the mix if he didn’t have his troubles in Round 1, is saying a lot. The work that went into these cars and the work that’s gone into—honestly the last 36 months—and we’re not out of the woods yet. 

 

“But this is a very good weekend for us to really build on our 1.5-mile program. And I think we’re off to a great start.”

 

Johnson, 43, has maintained his sense of humor throughout this slump, but it hasn’t been easy. 

 

After parting ways with Chad Knaus following an 18-year partnership, Johnson has scored just two top-10 finishes in the first six races under the direction of Kevin Meendering. He hasn’t won a race since Dover, 65 races ago. Before Johnson won the pole for the O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 on Friday, the last time he topped time trials was in 2016.

 

With the new NASCAR aero package, Johnson’s average finish is 18.4. His career average is 12.7. Last week at Martinsville Speedway, a track where Johnson has collected nine of his 83-career wins, he qualified 11th but finished 24th, two laps off of the pace despite never making any significant contact with another car. 

 

When asked whether last week was tough, Johnson replied, “No way man, I had so much support on Social Media. There were so many nice people talking about me and how good of a driver I am and how young I am. It was a great week.”

 

Yes, Johnson survived the shock of Sunday. Monday was still a little “tough.” But then it was time to get to work. 

 

“Every time I check in at the shop to see where things are at, and we’re just forced to move on,” Johnson said. “That was a short track and they were working really hard to get the cars and the truck to come here. So, we debriefed and we downloaded and we worked through it. 

 

“I spent some time talking to the other crew chiefs and their opinion on what could have gone wrong for my car and three of the four cars in general.”

 

Johnson’s teammate Chase Elliott finished second at Martinsville, his best result of the season. Bowman was 14th but on the lead lap. William Byron finished two positions ahead of Johnson in 22nd. 

 

Johnson assembled some solid notes from last Sunday but simply concluded the team was guilty of trying too hard with the setup. Since his 2016 victory at the half-mile track, he hasn’t scored a top-10 finish since.

 

“We haven’t had what we wanted there in a while and maybe we were just too aggressive,” Johnson said. “We qualified decent and practiced decent. But when the rubber laid down in the race, we were just way off.

 

“With that in mind we kind of told ourselves maybe let’s not be so aggressive and then we completely changed our concept and ideas of what we were going to bring here and stayed aggressive and it paid off. We still have the race ahead of us. We’ll see where that pans out. But our struggles have been highly frustrating just because of the effort that’s gone into it.”

 

Most NASCAR teams would be envious of the resources at Hendrick Motorsports. And when all four teams came under one roof several years ago, the expectation was to build a stronger nucleus. After the introduction of the new car, the crew chiefs haven’t always been in unison.

 

“I feel like, depending on the week and the experience we had the week before, it just kind of changes around,” Johnson said. “I think at Phoenix we were all close together, and we all performed very well. At Martinsville there were big differences in the setups of the cars.  Old ideas on some cars and new ideas on others. 

 

“Some weeks we think we need to stick closer together and we can move the ball down the field that way, and other weeks we think we need to be different.  Kevin is in a tough spot because he doesn’t have any notes of his own. Plus there are so many different rules packages to play with here.  I don’t envy Kevin’s position. I think he has done a great job managing it and handling it.”

 

Johnson was impressed with the way Meendering and the No. 48 Ally crew regrouped after Martinsville. He remains optimistic that Texas can be a fresh start the remainder of the season.

 

“This week was probably one of the biggest tests he has had so far, maybe in his career after a tough race in Martinsville,” Johnson said. “Rallying through it and calming everyone down and get stuff buttoned up in a line, and then be on the top of the board here every session is pretty amazing to have that composure to hold it all together.”