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LOUDON, N.H. – At the three-quarter mark of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season, Jimmie Johnson is on pace for four wins – a boon for most teams, but a bit below the bar that’s been set compared to the six, seven, even 10-win campaigns that we’re accustomed to seeing from the No. 48 Chevrolet driver.
A record-tying seven championships deep, the 42-year-old Johnson is likely in the final stage of his career.
A stage, in fact, that has seen the introduction of something foreign to the Hendrick Motorsports driver and NASCAR as a whole … stages.
Johnson’s three 2017 wins to date all came within the first 13 races of the season, while the concept of stage racing was fairly novel and teams were still feeling things out. To that point, Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus’ race strategy that led to the first seven titles remained largely unaltered: run hard, race fast and get to the finish line ahead of everyone else.
As the season wore on, other teams (see Nos. 18, 42, and particularly 78) began to adopt a strategy that included piling up stage wins and race wins — both of which the No. 48 team has been shut out of since an early June win at Dover.
In fact, Johnson and Co. have exactly – count ’em – one stage win in 2017, something the driver is starting to realize may be a determining factor throughout the remainder of the NASCAR Playoffs until Miami.
RELATED: 2017 stage point totals
“Those bonus points (for stage placement) are huge,” he said Friday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, site of Sunday’s ISM Connect 300 (2 p.m. ET, NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). “We had a white board with points earned on last weekend’s race (at Chicago) and you would think that an eighth-place finish would yield a fair amount of points, but we didn’t score any stage points. I can’t remember exactly now, but we didn’t leave the track with the eighth most points scored; it was much worse than that and that is a problem, especially as you get to the later rounds and need to count on points.
“I think we are all living it first-hand. I think we understood the concept, but now that it is in your face and you live it day-to-day and kind of obsess over it, I think it is making it much more apparent to myself and others how important those stage points are.”
Just take a look at where Martin Truex Jr., driver of the No. 78 Toyota, is in the playoffs standings compared to Johnson after the first race at Chicago. Truex won the race and Johnson finished eighth, but they’re separated by a whopping 56 points because of the 78 team’s emphasis on stage wins throughout 2017.
Johnson has proven time and again since his first title in 2006 that he can win in untenable circumstances, under evolving championship rules (points, 10-12- or 16-driver playoff fields, elimination-style, elimination style with stages, etc.).
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But he’s now realizing the situation his team is in currently and the points cushion his team maybe could have or should have – and the uphill battle he’ll be fighting over the next nine weeks.
“Yeah, this year’s format definitely doesn’t fit my natural tendency in a car and kind of what our team has earned seven championships through. So, we felt like without a doubt this is going to challenge us more than any other format in our history in the sport,” Johnson said. ” … We always show up at the end of a race and if you don’t win the race there is a very good chance you are going to earn (fewer) points than you did if you were up front at the start and got stage points in the first and second stage. That is just the reality of it and it’s forcing me to do things differently. … “
“But, winning does supersede all,” he continued. “So, if we can look at the new approach and at the same time not take anything away from the way we have won so many races and championships that will fix all.”
And if there was ever an old dog that could learn new tricks, it’s Johnson.