"I appreciate the opportunity to say thank you to everybody for your thoughts and prayers," the six-time Sprint Cup Series champion said, asking to address reporters himself before taking questions during his weekly news conference.

"This week has been a very difficult week for the Janway family (Jordan Janway was the younger brother of Johnson’s wife, Chandra).

"It’s been so tough for me to sit back and watch the people I love so much deal with so much pain. But, things are progressing and everybody is as good as you could hope. Last night, the family spent a lot of time telling stories about Jordan and smiling a little bit; smiling more than tears, and the healing process has definitely started."

Johnson said Friday that he hadn’t decided yet how he might honor Janway on his No. 48 Lowe’s "Spring is Calling" Chevrolet this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway.

"I haven’t thought that far ahead for the car or helmet or anything; it’s been such a wild and crazy week," he said. "So now that my mind is going to switch into race mode I’d certainly consider something there and take a look at it."

Come Sunday morning, however, he tweeted out a link to an Instagram shot of his helmet, with "Jordan Janway 1986-2014" inscribed on it.
Asked about his brother-in-law, who lived near Johnson’s hometown in San Diego, Johnson smiled and proudly and lovingly spoke about the "free spirit."

"He was just a free spirit, a very adventurous guy," Johnson said. "Base-jumping and parachuting and wearing the squirrel suits like you see the guys flying along the cliff sides, that’s what he did. He’s in a lot of those videos shooting that footage. So, it was a tragic death for sure. But he was doing something he loved. He was very passionate about it. He was a very warm and caring young man, and he’s definitely going to be missed."

"I just wanted to come in (to the Media Center) and make a brief comment before we got busy with racing," Johnson said. "And then, try to switch my mind into this racing reality and focus the next couple of days and go racing and try to win a race. The few times I did check into social media, there’s just been a huge outpouring of support, and I’m very thankful."

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But Goodyear and NASCAR said Friday, they have the utmost confidence in the product this weekend and reiterated that NASCAR will not mandate minimum tire pressures.

It comes down to team’s trying to make the best competition decisions.

"Long-term, they would rather be in charge of their own destiny, I think," NASCAR Vice President for Competition Robin Pemberton said Friday.

Goodyear’s Director of Race Tire Sales Greg Stucker agreed, suggesting the tire pressure recommendations the company gives eachweek should be heeded more closely.

"We feel very good about our recommendation here," Stucker said. "Historically Texas has not been a race track where we have a lot of left side problems. We addressed the right side because it is a high speed race track and that’s what gets stressed tremendously here. That’s why we came with the Zone Tread tire, because it was a good solution to that.

"Really, I think on the heels of some of the issues we saw at Fontana, people are asking the question, ‘Is there a possibility we could see the same thing?’ There’s always that possibility. People are always pushing the envelope, always trying to stress all parts of the race car. Weunderstand that and support that.

"That’s what makes racing great, right?"

That depends on whom you’re talking to. And it varies greatly in the Sprint Cup garage.

"I think it’s been more exciting, the racing we’ve had with the rules being loosened up this year, so why do we need to add more rules to tighten it back up again so I’m against [NASCAR mandating tire pressures],” said California winner Kyle Busch.
 “I think it was an exciting race in California. There were people who abused the left side air pressure and you saw them take off and have way more speed than others. But guys myself that didn’t abuse that left side air pressure were able to still salvage on and didn’t have problems with tires whatsoever and ultimately we won the race."

In fact none of Busch’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammates had tire problems and they chalked that up to being more conservative with their left side tires. Other teams were running much lower air pressure in the left tires in hopes of gaining a speed advantage.

"We’re concerned this weekend for sure for when we get out there," said Penske Racing driver Joey Logano, whose team suffered five blown tires during California practices.

"This new package, with the added down force and added load on these cars – we’re going faster – it puts a little more strain on these tires and this is one of those race tracks that if you run on that white line you’re catching some of that apron and we really think that’s what was blowing the tires out.  

"I think everybody was being pretty aggressive there," Logano conceded. “We were where we wanted to be because the advantage on the long haul was there, so we’re gonna be aggressive there.  In the race, I think everyone came up a littlebit, everyone was trying to tune things down and our car, unfortunately, broke a gear but we didn’t have an issue in the race, whereas in practice we couldn’t run a 15-lap run. 

"We’ll see how this practice goes here in a few hours and see what it looks like. There are different ways we can dial it back, whether it’s behind the wheel or in the garage here when we’re setting them up."

Owner-driver Tony Stewart said that although he has every confidence in what Goodyear has supplied for the weekend. However, he would be in favor of having NASCAR mandate tire recommendations.

"I think if it’s an issue of minimum pressures, Goodyear has always regulated that to certain degree,” Stewart said. “But if it keeps it from having failures and lets us race and worry about what we’re doing on the track, instead of a guessing game on whether we’re going to make it because the pressures are running too low, I’d rather them put a regulation on it."

While it is a mixed bag of expectations, Dale Earnhardt Jr. says he for one, is among those not overly concerned with the tire situation. And in fact, he doesn’t expect his team to change its tire strategy.

"I want to be as aggressive as we can because there’s speed in that,” Earnhardt said. “We’ll pay attention to that and I don’t think we’ll have any problem this weekend. “The bumps on the back straightaway were a big part of the problem at California and I don’t think we’ll have any issues here.

"We’ll go out there in practice and pay really close attention to what we’re seeing and be as aggressive as we can be in producing speed. I think the pace will slow down as the tires fall off here and we won’t really have a tire issue. I don’t think there’s anything to be concerned with personally."

Busch takes it further cautioning against over-reacting and eliminating strategic variables.

"I think you need more tortoise and the hare type stories in racing," Busch said.

"That’s where the excitement is going to come from. It’s not everyone always being the same speed all the time, running around in a train. It’s going to come from guys that are faster at different opportunities."

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