Okay, you explain it: Jimmie Johnson is the man to beat at Martinsville...but at Bristol usually he's just a beaten man?

  
   Questions, questions, questions. Jimmie Johnson has a lot of questions about Bristol (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   BRISTOL, Tenn.
   Jimmie Johnson has had his hands full trying to figure out this place.
   For all his wizardry at the NASCAR tour's big tracks, this lightning-fast short-track has been generally a bummer for him.
   So he's been doing his homework:
   "I've studied video, I've worked engineers, I've driven many laps in my head…and I started the whole process of convincing myself 'I love this track.'"
   Of course he probably doesn't really love this track. It's been trouble for him over the years.
   But Johnson is doing his best.  
   "Usually I make some progress with goals I set, but last year I failed in all three -- Bristol, the Glen, and Sonoma.
   "I didn't get the results I wanted. But I still have that same outlook, and I hope to win on one of those three tracks soon."
   Here?
   Well, sometimes it seems like it just takes some wild-and-crazy driving.
   Johnson, though, would prefer a more scientific approach: "The most useful time getting prepared for this weekend was spent with my crew chief Chad Knaus and our race engineer Greg Ives -- and really pinpointing the track.
   "We've been up here a bunch, and we've tested a lot…but to really go through it and find out where I thought the center of the corner was, and where I felt the car was 'loose-in,' and where I felt different parts of the corner were…
   "What we learned is that we were maybe 30 degrees off around the corner. Where they thought the center was was really further around. So we weren't talking the same part of the turn. And maybe that's what has hurt us here.
    "We're much closer than we've ever been at the start of practice."
    Qualifying third for Sunday's Food City 500 is a double hit, because he gets good track position, and Knaus gets a good pit pick. And as rough and tough as pit road has been so far this season, the pit spot could be key, as tight as the pit stalls are.
   "At the start I'd say track position means more than anything," Johnson says.
    "If you start at the back -- which I've done many times -- it doesn't take long and there's the leader in the mirror and he's coming. So everybody is fighting so hard for position."
   
   
    Okay, let's see what hard-luck Ryan Newman can do with some clean air Sunday at Bristol. He's starting on front row (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
    Ironically next week at Martinsville Johnson is probably the favorite. Why one short track and not the other?
    And why such success at Martinsville, which, with its slow, tight corners, isn't on many drivers' top-10 list of favorites.
   "It is such a difficult track, and a challenging track," Johnson says of Martinsville. "Not only do you have to deal with frustration…..
   "I don't think you can grow up racing on any surface, or at any level racing in the country, and be ready for that track.
   "Before my first time there we tested twice because the first test went so bad. The second time we came back for the race, and nothing worked. When I came back again, Tony Stewart was lapping me, so I followed him and learned the rhythm, and it clicked in my brain: 'Oh? That's how you do it.'"
   So why not Bristol too? After all, teammate Jeff Gordon has had great success here.
    "Two totally different worlds," Johnson says. "Here you probably spend more time on the gas, and more wide-open throttle in the corner than you do on the straightaway – It's just backwards to me.
    "When you're coming off the corner and transitioning on the straightaway, typically you have to let off some because the transition is so abrupt.
   "Then you let off at the start-finish line, if not before. So you just have this small zone where you're trying to get some traction.
   "Then you coast in the corner, and in the center of the turn you blast the throttle… and then again start letting off coming out of the straightaway.
    "That just doesn't work for me. It's backwards and doesn't work. Then you go to Martinsville and you're off the gas when you should be and you're on the gas when you should be, and I can get that rhythm."
  "Here we'd make runs, and I'd overlay the driver inputs and try to find the rhythm of this track…and I couldn't get it. We've tested here every year we've had the opportunity to test, and I just still have not been able to find the rhythm it takes.
    "I've had good runs, I've finished top-five a couple of times.
   "So my outlook on this weekend really is get to the half-way point.
    "We've spent a couple of days of overlaying data, and looking at Kyle Busch's driving style from data we had.
   "We try so hard at this track, and that's why our frustration is so high.
   "I can't wait to learn this place and be able to make a difference and help my team out."
  
   Jimmie Johnson is talking to everyone about how to find that Bristol rhythm. Maybe Brian Vickers (R) has some advice. (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)