Johnson: Earnhardt 'did a fantastic job of intimidating me'
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LONG POND, Pa. -- Jimmie Johnson's quest to match NASCAR icon Dale Earnhardt's Hall of Fame statistics reached another level last weekend. In both cases, the lofty numbers are worthy of stock-car racing elite.
The 39-year-old driver's bid to equal Earnhardt and NASCAR's King, Richard Petty, with a seventh premier series championship has been in full swing ever since Johnson claimed title No. 6 in 2013. But after scoring his fourth victory of the season last weekend at Dover International Speedway, Johnson inched closer to Earnhardt on NASCAR's all-time win list.
Earnhardt recorded 76 victories in his legendary premier-series career, placing him eighth on NASCAR's registry of winners. Johnson enters Sunday's Axalta "We Paint Winners" 400 (1 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1, MRN, SiriusXM) at Pocono Raceway sitting on No. 74. Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon is the only active driver with more wins -- 92.
While Johnson didn't want to get too far ahead of himself in reaching Earnhardt's mark, he's clearly given some thought to what it means to be considered in the same company.
"It's still two away from us, and we certainly hope to have the opportunity to tie him, and then the competitor in me would like to pass that and chase down the next guy," Johnson said Friday at Pocono. "I remember and had the great fortune, like everybody here, to watch Jeff Gordon tie that monumental record. I know how much it meant to Jeff."
Gordon's ascendance to NASCAR royalty in the 1990s came during a time when Earnhardt reigned, creating a rivalry that grew from playful tweaking and intense competition to mutual admiration and respect. Gordon passed Earnhardt with his 77th Sprint Cup victory in 2007 at Talladega Superspeedway, and fans from the longtime stronghold for "The Intimidator" responded by throwing beer cans on the track.
Gordon said Friday that the milestone still means a great deal to him, especially as he enters a period of transition in his last full season as a driver. But he said that Johnson is also cognizant of what the accomplishment might mean as he creeps up the all-time win list.
"Having the opportunity to race with Dale and know his greatness, what he meant to the sport, how tough he was as a competitor and how many races he won, it overwhelmed me that I ever got to that mark because to me, when I started in the sport, it just seemed like he was winning everything and had done it for a long, long time," Gordon said.
"Jimmie, it's just a matter of time really for him. This'll be just one of the many records he continues to break and surpass and putting his name in the record books as one of the all-time greats. Doesn't seem like that's going to slow down any time soon, and it's hard to put it in perspective maybe when you didn't get much of an opportunity to race against somebody like Dale. I know how much it meant to me to know him as a friend and a competitor, but you know, Jimmie's got a great sense of the sport and what he's doing and I know how much it means to him, so I know that something like that will mean a lot to him as well. And I hope he gets the proper respect when that day happens."
Johnson didn't enter NASCAR's top series full-time until the 2002 season, one year after Earnhardt's death in a crash at Daytona International Speedway. Though he never got to test himself against Earnhardt's hard-nosed racing style, Johnson said he had enough intimidation to go around in his brief interactions with Earnhardt early in his career.
"I unfortunately never had a chance to race against Dale. Definitely there's a void there in my mind in my career that I didn't have that opportunity," Johnson said. "I did meet him a couple times and he did a fantastic job of intimidating me and scaring the you-know-what out of me in both of those instances. If it does happen, we'll of course want to handle it the right way, pay tribute to Dale and what he's done for our sport -- the true badass he was in our sport -- and when and if that does happen, it'll be an honor to be there in that status with him."