Big picture is behind Johnson's double-duty

Posted on March 3, 2013 by

Johnson’s Nationwide Phoenix plans geared toward long-term Chase aspirations

AVONDALE, Ariz. — You’d think Jimmie Johnson would walk into Phoenix International Raceway feeling bulletproof. The five-time NASCAR champion is coming off a Daytona 500 that ranks among the most significant race victories of his career, and into a 1-mile track where he’s won four times. And yet, in preparation for this event his focus was not on triumphs — but on shortcomings in the event here last fall.

Not the blown tire that effectively wrecked his chances of a sixth championship on the Sprint Cup Series, but the way the No. 48 car performed before that — which perhaps led Johnson to ask more of the vehicle than it was prepared to give. Since the reconfiguration of this track in 2011, Johnson has suffered through two uncharacteristically poor finishes here, the latter a crash-induced 32nd-place result that all but sewed up Brad Keselowski’s first title. It all led Johnson to take the atypical step of signing up for Saturday’s Nationwide Series race in addition to the main event, where he finished 12th after battling a loose car.

Nationwide starts are a rarity for Johnson, who has only made 20 since his full-time Sprint Cup career began, and just one (at Watkins Glen International in 2011) in the previous three seasons. During his five-year championship stretch, he built his dominance by focusing almost exclusively on Sprint Cup events, and the historic results led some other drivers to follow suit. So for Johnson to step over to the Nationwide tour, there has to be a logic behind it — which is certainly the case at Phoenix.

"The way the Chase is settled anymore, you don’t need top-10s. You need top-fives and wins."

— Jimmie Johnson

“It’s tough to get laps on this track,” Johnson said. “We considered coming out and testing, but with the tire change and with them changing the testing policy for Cup, it just wasn’t going to work for a couple of reasons. The next best thing was to run the Nationwide Series race. I have no clue what I’m going to learn from those cars to carry over, but reps on the track can’t hurt, and ultimately that’s what I think I need.”

NASCAR has amended its limited testing policy to allow teams four tests per organization at sanctioned venues, but for Hendrick Motorsports, far-off Phoenix isn’t on the schedule. Johnson had a 12-race stretch where he never finished worse than seventh here, and success at Phoenix — which is the penultimate race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup — was a cornerstone of his championship reign. So it’s easy to see why this specific venue is so important to him personally, and why he’s trying anything he can to recapture the magic he once had here.

“The tracks in the Chase, we’re very strong at. We feel like with the testing policy that is in place now, we can prepare for some of the other tracks that are within the Chase if we want. We have that flexibility. But what we couldn’t do is test here,” Johnson said.

“All four teams have to go, and then the tire has to have raced at that track before, before you can go. We couldn’t come before. Then our teammates didn’t think this track was all that important to test at, so my only way to get more experience, and to try to get a better handle on this track is to run the (Nationwide) car. That’s really the bottom line. I’m still trying to learn the two cars, and figure out what can carry over from one to the other, because they are pretty different. I’m not sure I will figure it all out this weekend, but my first time on the track in the Cup car, I knew we were better off than we’ve been here in a long time. It should be a good week for us.”

Early indications are positive, given that Johnson backed up his Daytona 500 triumph by qualifying third for Sunday’s event. On Saturday, he drove a No. 5 car fielded by JR Motorsports, which is co-owned by his Hendrick teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Johnson is coming off a grueling week, having visited eight states in the publicity blitz that followed his Daytona victory, but didn’t regret signing up for the additional seat time this weekend at Phoenix.

He’s not sure how much will translate, given that the Sprint Cup division moved this year to the more brand-identifiable Generation-6 cars. But as usually the case with Johnson, the big picture is always in sight. Not even all the champagne and confetti sprayed in the aftermath of his Daytona triumph can obscure that.

“The track here is so different than what it was before,” Johnson said. “I just need to do something to try and improve this track. We were probably going to run top-10 if I didn’t blow a tire (last fall), but the way the Chase is settled anymore, you don’t need top-10s. You need top-fives and wins. We need to make sure we are covering our bases, and we are ready for the race this fall.”

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Posted on March 3, 2013 by

Roush Fenway driver holds off Johnson, shakes two-year doldrums

RESULTS: Subway Fresh Fit 500

AVONDALE, Ariz. — The number is 70 — and no longer counting.

As Denny Hamlin put it, Carl Edwards is “relevant again” after winning Sunday’s Subway Fresh Fit 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Phoenix International Raceway in a green-white-checkered-flag finish that took the race four laps past its posted distance of 312 laps.

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In beating Jimmie Johnson to the finish line by 1.024 seconds, Edwards broke a winless streak that had reached 70 races, dating to March 6, 2011 at Las Vegas. Remarkably, Edwards broke another 70-race drought at the one-mile track in the Sonoran desert when he won at Phoenix in November 2010.

Behind Edwards and Johnson, Denny Hamlin ran third, making the most of a daredevil move that cut the backstretch dogleg on the last lap and got his No. 11 Toyota past the No. 2 Ford of reigning series champion Brad Keselowski, who came home fourth.

It was Keselowski, though, driving a Ford after Penske Racing’s between-season switch from Dodge, who gave Edwards the push that propelled him to the front on the final restart on Lap 315.
For his part, Edwards hopes the momentum of his 20th career victory continues throughout the season.

“When you’re struggling, it seems like time slows down,” Edwards said after being told of Hamlin’s “relevant” comment. “You’re working harder, you‘re trying more, you’re questioning yourself more… (Last year) was one of the longest years of my life, to work that hard and not get the victories.

“I’m very, very happy to be back in the mix here. A victory is huge for so many reasons. Last year we didn’t make the Chase. For me to sit home, while everybody was at the Chase stuff in Vegas — that was a little bit of a shock to me. I did not like that at all.

“So to get a victory helps us be in a better position for the Chase. It just feels good to win. So, yeah, I hope Denny’s right. I hope we’re relevant or more than relevant all year. I hope we dominate this thing.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished fifth, losing his winning chances when he spun his tires on the penultimate restart on Lap 243. Clint Bowyer, Matt Kenseth, Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon and Jeff Burton.

Edwards’ No. 99 Ford Fusion led 67 straight green-flag laps after the restart on Lap 243, but Ken Schrader’s crash on Lap 309 sent the race to overtime and gave the crew chiefs of the leading cars nervous moments as they tried to recalculate fuel mileage.

The top 14 cars stayed out for a restart on Lap 315, and Edwards had enough gas to complete two laps and win the race.

On the last two restarts, Johnson felt Edwards played fast and loose with the zone, delineated by red marks on the wall, within which the leader is required to accelerate.

“I felt like Carl didn’t follow the restart protocol and was slower than the pace car on his last two restarts, and it gives the leader a huge advantage when that happens,” Johnson said. ‘You’re supposed to wait until you get between the two lines and take off, and this was all going on before (the restart zone).”

Naturally enough, Edwards had a completely different view of the restart. Though Johnson said he made a point of maintaining pace car speed, Edwards thought Johnson was speeding up as the cars approached the start.

“Usually the guy in second hangs back a little bit, and he pulled up there and I thought, ‘Why’s he doing that?’ ” Edwards said. “Yeah, maybe I was slowing down, but I wasn’t trying to. I thought he was speeding up. I thought it was pretty genius what he was doing, because it kind of got me off of my game.

“But then, when I went, I think he maybe wasn’t looking at me or something, because he waited just a little bit too long to go. But, truthfully, that was not by design. I was not trying to do anything tricky. I thought he was.”

Danica Patrick’s hard crash on Lap 185 caused the sixth caution of the race. The right-front tire on Patrick’s No. 10 Chevrolet SS exploded without warning as the car rolled through Turn 4. The car bounced off the outside wall into the path of David Ragan’s Ford.

The resulting collision ripped the driver’s-side door off Patrick’s car and knocked the protective foam out of the door frame. Patrick walked away from the wreck but ended the day in 39th place.

"It was a little unexpected," Patrick said after she was evaluated and released from the infield care center. "I took a hard hit to the right, and then on the left. I’m fine. The cars and the tracks are so safe. As a driver that’s a nice feeling. It doesn’t change the fact that we aren’t going to get any points really coming out of today, and it would have been nice."

That caution, however, proved a boon to her former car owner, Earnhardt, who was first off pit road for a restart on Lap 194. Earnhardt’s No. 88 Chevy took a liking to the clean air and remained on point, pacing teammate Johnson as the Hendrick Motorsports pair opened a one-second lead over Matt Kenseth in third.

Forty laps into the green-flag run, Earnhardt had widened his edge over Johnson to .928 seconds before the yellow flag flew on Lap 236 for David Gilliland’s hard contact with the outside wall in Turn 1, the result of another blown right-front tire.

That caution, the seventh of the race, put Kyle Busch back on the lead lap. Busch went a lap down after spinning into the Turn 2 wall on Lap 48 and persevered until he was awarded a free pass as the highest-scored lapped car when Gilliland wrecked.

Busch had started at the rear of the field because of an eleventh-hour engine change Sunday morning. The engine in his No. 18 Camry suffered a part failure during warmup, the result of a reassembly error.

Contributing: Staff reports

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READ: Phoenix a different
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READ: NASCAR
examining fences

WATCH: Edwards returns
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Posted on March 3, 2013 by Nascar

After making Daytona history, Patrick sidelined by Phoenix crash

AVONDALE, Ariz. — The roar of the cars resumed, Lap 194 clicked off the scoreboard and Dale Earnhardt Jr. was in the lead.

It was about then that Danica Patrick stepped out of the infield care center at Phoenix International Raceway, where members of the media stood two and three deep and dozens of fans mingled in the background, camera phones at the ready.

Eighth a week ago in the season-opening Daytona 500, Patrick wasn’t as fortunate in the Subway Fresh Fit 500 at PIR.

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A blown tire on Lap 185 sent her Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet hard into the outside wall exiting Turn 4, where it bounced off the wall and into the path of David Ragan’s Ford. Another hard hit and it finally came to rest against the inside wall on the frontstretch.

“Obviously I blew a right-front,” Patrick, 39th in the 43-car field, said after departing the care center. “No real warning. … It was a little unexpected. I took a hard hit to the right, and then on the left (but) I’m fine.”

Seventh in points after her top-10 at Daytona, Patrick tumbled to 22nd in the standings. Teammate Ryan Newman experienced tire issues twice, his 40th-place car towed to the garage after 137 laps.

“I felt like we had some good racing going on out there, I felt like we were making progress with the car,” Patrick said. “Not an awesome day by any means; we weren’t tearing it up, I wouldn’t say. But we were … making progress, holding our own, over halfway through the race (we were) on the lead lap still. I‘d say things were going OK.

“It would have been nice to have gotten maybe a top 20, just for some decent points. Instead, we’ll have to buckle down and run a little better in Vegas.”

Crew chief Tony Gibson said he didn’t think the tire problem was a melted bead, brought on by excessive heat, although Goodyear officials later confirmed that was the case.

“We ran longer than that today earlier with no issue,” Gibson said. “We didn’t see any temperatures all day long; our tires we pulled off were fine. It’s a mystery to me, I don’t know.”

Gibson said that on Saturday, under hotter track temperatures, there were no tire concerns for his team. “And we’ve got less camber than we ran last year with the old car.”

Repairs weren’t necessary as Patrick’s car was totaled. But long after crewmen had begun the process of taking the car apart, Patrick watched intently from the sidelines. Had someone handed her a wrench, she appeared ready and willing to dive in and start removing something. Anything.

“She’s in it to win it,” Gibson said. “She’s got all the desire and the want-to to do it, and she’s got the heart. A lot of people don’t understand that about her. That just shows what she does. She wanted to know what she could do different, was it something she did, how do we fix it for the next time.

“She’s into it, she asks a lot of questions and wants to make things better. That’s all you can ask.”

READ MORE:

READ: Carl Edwards
ends losing streak

READ: NASCAR
examining fences

WATCH: Bowyer hits
pit crew member

WATCH: Edwards returns
to Victory Lane

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Posted on March 3, 2013 by Nascar

Late-race logjam with Edwards, Mears costs Earnhardt

AVONDALE, Ariz. — It might have been the result of a game of “cat and mouse” as crew chief Steve Letarte said, but it got his driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr., in the lead.

And on a track where passing seemed difficult and lead changes were often determined by what took place along pit road, being out front was crucial.

Earnhardt Jr. led 47 laps in Sunday’s Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix International Raceway, the second stop for NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series. Had he won the race off pit road during a caution on Lap 238, he might have led more. Including the all-important final one.

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But he didn’t; Carl Edwards did. And Edwards, riding a 70-race winless streak, came out of PIR with the victory. Earnhardt Jr. took little solace in a fifth-place finish, enough to keep him second in the series’ points standings.

The two drivers were racing off pit road, Earnhardt Jr. appeared to have the advantage, and then the car of Casey Mears slowed to enter his pit stall, blocking Earnhardt Jr.’s progress and leaving Edwards to win the race back onto the track.

“I hate to be frustrated at Phoenix, but I think we are,” Earnhardt Jr. said of his Hendrick Motorsports team. “We had a real good car. We feel like we could have finished better than fifth, maybe won the race. Just didn’t get the breaks on pit road.

“I just had to lift and give the spot to the 99 (of Edwards). That was the race in my opinion, and we almost had it won right there.”

Earnhardt Jr. had qualified 21st, but made his way inside the top 10 by Lap 120 of the 316-lap race. He was able to stay there for the remainder of the race, eventually taking the lead at Lap 192 during a round of pit stops under the day’s sixth caution.

When the yellow flew once again at Lap 311, fuel concerns among the leaders intensified. A green-white-checkered finish could erase a full day’s worth of hard work.

“We were playing cat-and-mouse with all the crew chiefs on pit road all day about how much fuel you took each stop,” Letarte said. “I knew (Edwards) took more than us the stop before because that’s how we got the lead. So we basically just put as much fuel in as we could until they were next to us on pit road and we left, trying to race them around the corner.”

Mears, however, was the unexpected player. “He was doing nothing wrong,” Letarte said. “He still had to go into his stall, and we had to check up because of him. That was basically the race for us.”

Edwards, who entered pit road fourth, said he saw Mears’ car ahead as he and Earnhardt Jr. were leaving pit road “and I thought, ‘I’m not exactly sure how this is going to work out’ and (Mears) turned left.

“Dale could have run me up into the wall … spun Casey out and I could tell he thought about it. I think he did because there was that little pause and I thought, ‘He’s going to do it.’ And then he stood on the brakes and kept from tearing all the cars up; that had to be very difficult for him because I think we all knew right then that that could be the race.”

Second a week ago at Daytona, Earnhardt Jr. left Phoenix trailing teammate Jimmie Johnson by eight points (90-82). With only one top-10 finish at the 1-mile track in his last six starts, Earnhardt Jr. tried to temper his disappointment at what he considered an opportunity lost.

“We haven’t been good here,” he said. “So that was a good run for us. I was a little disappointed because I think we could have won. And you hate to give away … points. And I’d love to get to Victory Lane.

“This is a good sign for us though that we’ve improved this much at Phoenix. Hopefully it’s a sign for the rest of the season and that we’re going to be all right.”

Letarte said if there was any track where the team could use a top-five finish, “this is definitely it.”

Given the fuel concerns, however, he wasn’t so sure his driver would be able to come home with a top 10, much less a top five.

“We were scared to death,” Letarte said. “The first time the car has been full all day long is right here in post-tech. All day long we left short on gas, that’s how we gained our track position.”

But, he said, “you don’t know how much is in it and … you don’t know what you’re getting for mileage. A lot of educated guesses, but I’ve been wrong with a lot of educated guesses before.”

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