Into everyone's life a little rain must fall, but enough (cont'd)

The methodical assassin

Johnson ran the fastest lap of anyone on the last lap at Atlanta, 32.32 seconds, which was nearly two-tenths of a second faster than race winner Carl Edwards. Tell me you can't love a guy who'll just flat go for it with so much on the line and I'll certainly question your race-watching license.

"No, you got to race -- that's what we're here for," said Johnson, who certainly seems to understand why the people who aren't staying home or flipping the dial somewhere else, are viewing NASCAR racing. "You have no clue what's going to take place next week or the final two races. You got to go; you just can't sit still and be content."

But one thing you can't expect out of Johnson is much out-of-the-car bluster. It's just not "him," he said.

"There's a couple times I climbed out of the car and been a smart-ass about things -- it just doesn't work for me," Johnson said. "I can't get out like [Tony] Stewart and create a hurricane and be OK with that. I just don't do good at that stuff. Certain guys do.

"I've known that my entire career. I've always raced people with respect. I've always tried to settle it on the track, settle it in a way that it's racing, but I'm [no] pushover by any means out there. That's just my style, the way I've always raced.

"I think it's why guys work with me so well on-track over the years. There's just a lot that spins off of it. If you get out there and race hard but you don't screw with people, things work out a lot better."

It's got him at least one fan.

"Jimmie is just phenomenal," his car owner, Rick Hendrick, said. "That combination [Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus] is unbelievable but Jimmie Johnson has so much talent and so much confidence. He knows exactly what that car is capable of doing and he'll put it in places where you'd think, 'no way.'

"I think it was his off-road experience but, man, he can drive a car out of control and be under control. He knows he has a feel for what the car can do. I'm just glad I don't have to race against him."

Goodyear's tough task

Talk about the difference six months or so makes. In March at Atlanta, the Sprint Cup garage was nearly united, en masse, against Goodyear's tire choice and was decidedly vocal in its outrage.

It was interesting that this past weekend there were virtually no blatant tire "issues" and a much softer reaction -- maybe equal to the softer right-side tires Goodyear brought -- as a result. But leave it to Johnson, who perhaps benefited more than anyone from a late decision to bolt on four fresh tires, which enabled a charge into second at the end, to deliver the perfect back-handed compliment.

"From a driver standpoint, I can't say that I felt a lot different this time versus last time -- I had my hands full both races," Johnson said, before equally blaming AMS and NASCAR's new car. "The [tire] construction is still not matched up for what the car needs and wants here. This track is so different than any other mile-and-a-half that we run on.

"I can't explain to you how rough it is in this car. I think the old car with the more travel that we had, [was] a little more forgiving. In this car, with the splitter hitting the ground, it being solid like it is [with] the bump-stops, this place is a monster, man; it's got its own characteristics.

"I commend Goodyear for taking a shot at making the tire better. I think we saw some improvements."

Winning owner Jack Roush voted with Johnson.

"The tires they had here, if you get off a little bit or if you overheat one tire, you're gonna have a consequence of really having your car slow down and that really lets the crew chiefs with the setup and the driver who gives the best input have the best chance," Roush said. "So we like to race these tires. We like for the tires not to be perfect. They were good tires, even though they fell off quite a bit."

Start times matter

In the fall in the United States of America, the National Football League is king. Heck, if you try to watch a Nationwide Series race on ESPN, you know football is king, period. And about this time, Major League Baseball's World Series is No. 2. So get over it.

And the sooner NASCAR and its TV network partners could come to grips with that, it would be interesting to see what difference it made, if any, on attendance and ratings. There's at least one guy who would vote for an earlier green flag.

"When the sun comes down on us in Turn 1 and you can't see ... well, I couldn't see any of my marks to get down in the corner; I didn't know where I was going when I got off in there, I didn't know where I was going to end up," Dale Earnhardt Jr. said after finishing 11th at Atlanta. "The last 50 laps wasn't no fun.

"I was running on the bottom and once the sun's in your eyes you can't see the corner, so you can't aim to where you want to go and hit your marks. It's stupid. We should start the race earlier, but the networks want it later for attendance and this and that and the other -- but it makes the end of the race terrible."

If the fans could vote, how would they? Though it seems, by staying away in thousands as they did in Atlanta and apparently not watching, either, they are doing just that.

Day by day

Team Rensi Motorsports, the longtime Busch and Nationwide Series entity that was widely reported last weekend as being out of business on Monday if sponsorship was not signed for its primary car, the No. 25 Ford driven by Bobby Hamilton Jr., not only had Hamilton's car on the entry list for this weekend's O'Reilly Challenge at Texas, it post-entered its No. 35 Ford for former series rookie of the year Danny O'Quinn Jr. on Tuesday. For what it's worth, neither car had a sponsor listed.

Entry Lists
• Texas: Cup Series | Nationwide | Truck Series