Jimmie Johnson crosses another one off the NASCAR bucket list

  Jimmie Johnson sets sail at Sonoma (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

    By Mike Mulhern
    mikemulhern.net

    SONOMA, Calif.
    Jimmie Johnson, Formula 1?
    Well, he says he'd like to try it.
    Or at least an F1 car.
    Just like teammate/buddy Jeff Gordon did a few years ago.
    And why not?
    Johnson has won just about everything in NASCAR.
    He's looking strong enough to challenge for that fifth championship.
    And he just checked off 'road course win' on that bucket list.
   Johnson has been so intensely focused on getting his first NASCAR tour road course win that he admits things between him and crew chief Chad Knaus have been a bit testy at time.
   But now they can both breath a sigh of relief, after Sunday's win here, the 51st of his career --  which puts him in shot of catching Lee Petty (54 career wins) and Rusty Wallace (55), which would put Johnson eighth on NASCAR's all-time list....with legendary Dale Earnhardt (76) next on the list to catch.
    "All those test days we left frustrated, mad," Johnson mused. "We just had one three or four weeks ago -- I don't think we talked for a day or two after that one. 
     "It's so frustrating trying to find a little something that makes a difference. 
    "To have that all come full circle is really cool."
    One key here, he said, was not overdriving, not putting too much pressure on himself, trying not to make mistakes....and after a mistake-filled month of May that's a good idea everywhere.
     "This weekend I've done a very good job not being too intense about things," Johnson says. "I knew we had a good package. I just didn't want to over-think it and put too much pressure on myself, and take that pressure, and aggression, out onto the track and overdrive the car and make mistakes.
    "I love road course racing.  I always have.  I grew up racing off-road trucks, on road courses with jumps. Made a name for myself in that style of racing.
    "To come into the Cup series and not have success early irritated me.
     "So we got in this routine of road course, road course, road course.
     "That's why today is so special to us, why it has meant so much."
    Knaus said the team has been spending a lot of time testing for Sonoma and Watkins Glen, "probably 50 percent more than what we do for the ovals.
    "It's been an amazing effort.
    "We knew we were behind; we had to get our product better. We felt our drivers needed to get better. 
     "Jimmie personally has put a lot of effort into upping his road course racing capabilities."
     Another key here for Johnson – staying up front and away from most of the crazies.
     "Man, I was so thankful to be up front," Johnson said. "I still got hit a few times. 
    "I could hear our spotters saying 'They're off in four...they're off in seven.'
     "And when you come back around, there's going to be dirt on the road.
    "I mean there was stuff all over the place.
    "When you get to the closing laps, and you're deep in the field, it's just nasty.  You hope you can be on the inside...and you don't care if you get close to your braking marks -- You just go in and make 16 tires better than four.  You just go in there and blast people."
    Another key: not pressing it when chasing Marcos Ambrose late.
    "I thought I had pace to run with him...but I was getting pretty loose," Johnson said. 
    "I could catch him through the slow stuff. But through esses, and 9 and 10, my car at the end of the day just got really loose through there.  I was coming close to making a mistake.
     "Chad was preaching to me 'Take care of your tires.'
    "Once I finally came to grips with that, then I was content in second. 
    "Didn't really like it, but I didn't have anything for Marcos."
   
    And that, Johnson says, is part of a bigger picture, after May's many problems: "I think in May I was just not on the wheel...and trying a little too hard.
    "I've recalibrated now, and doing a better job with that."
    But Johnson says not to put too much importance in a road course win; and he says he's still got his sights set on trying to catch Denny Hamlin on the stock car tour's other tracks.
   Hamlin had a bad Sunday, getting caught up a crash and having to fight a damaged car the rest of the afternoon.
   Hamlin, teammate Kyle Busch and Joey Logano "are quick on short tracks, big tracks," Johnson says. "They have their package refined and working really well right now.
    "We've been competitive; we're a top-five car. But we're not where we want to be yet. 
   "The good thing is we have time, we have a lot of time to get our stuff right.
    "On the flip of that, we want to believe there's a lot of time for them to lose their way. 
     "We know that we haven't been as dominant as we'd like to be.  The mistakes I made, and just some bad luck in May, made things look a lot worse than they were.
     "Look at the last two weeks -- We've been in the top-five, running well."

   THE NASCAR NOTEBOOK

    The latest update on the Rick Hendrick-James Finch-Kasey Kahne situation:
    While Hendrick himself says there is nothing to reports that he is considering putting Kahne in Finch-owned Chevys next season, the sports director for Pensacola TV station WJGH, Scott Rossman, says he's talked with Finch (who lives in Pensacola) about it: "In my conversation with him (Finch), he did confirm he's talking with Rick about possibly putting Kahne in the 9 car, but calls the talks preliminary. I personally believe they are discussing seriously that option. I know Finch would jump at the chance..."

    The NASCAR debut of its new Nationwide car-of-tomorrow is just a few days away, at Daytona, and Ford and Dodge officials – who have embraced the program, while Chevrolet and Toyota have been less enthusiastic about it – are talking it up. Ford, especially, because it has badged its version of that car with the venerable Mustang logo.
    Bernie Marcus, Ford's NASCAR aerodynamics engineer, has been key in the design work: "It was a lot more difficult to do the Mustang, and turn it into a NASCAR-type vehicle, because the nose of the Mustang is a lot more bulky and squarer than that of a Fusion or the Taurus (Ford's two Cup cars).
    "The key to make the Mustang work is that NASCAR opened up the rules in the hood height area, and that enabled us to get the character lines of the Mustang into the nose without compromising performance."
    Chevrolet has steadfastly refused to bring its Camaro into NASCAR, for still unclear reasons. GM says it wants NASCAR to allow more character lines in the car.
    Toyota has no similar muscle car, though one could be on the drawing board.

   Among Sunday's more curious storylines:

    -- Danish racer Jan Magnussen, 12th in his NASCAR debut, in a Hendrick-engineering car, was laughing about the experience afterwards: "It was fantastic...unlike anything I've ever experienced. The first two hours, compared to the last hour, was a big difference -- People got more aggressive.
   "The last 20 minutes, it just got nuts!
     "Nothing prepares you for that, other than doing it."
    And what did he learn: "To stay off the wall; it tends to under-steer afterwards," he said dryly.
    Magnussen races for GM in sports cars: "You cannot compare the cars; they are two completely different worlds. But what you can compare is the way people drive....and they (in NASCAR) drive so aggressively but still with respect. That, I admire.
    "They go two two-wide and three-wide....and they allow you to race."
    Magnussen and Carl Edwards had a little go at it, and Edwards got the worst. "I'm a little bit sorry that Carl Edwards came over to me after the race, but I got shoved into him and he spun around. He did not know that and was really angry."

    -- And Mattias Ekström, the 31-year-old Swedish racer, was most impressive, leading at times and looking for a solid top-10 finish....when late in the race he discovered that it doesn't always pay to be courteous in NASCAR.
    He finished 21st after getting tagged by Brad Keselowski while trying to give Keselowski extra room in turn eight.
    "I cannot say from my heart I am happy with 21st," Ekstrom said.
    Ekstrom is filling in for Brian Vickers on Jay Frye's team Red Bull on road courses.

   -- Kevin Harvick stretching his Sprint Cup tour points lead with a hard-charging third place finish. "I felt I could run with Jimmie. We just got stuck back there in traffic."
   That was after Harvick tangled with Boris Said and hit the dirt.
   And there was a heck of a lot of that going on throughout the three-hour race.
    Why were drivers so aggressive? "The double-file restarts promote a lot of that," Harvick says. "You have to take what you can get...and when you have guys on different tire strategies, it's hard to judge the speeds."
    Harvick's points lead is now 140, biggest of the season.
  
      -- Tony Stewart was one of the day's disappointments, in what has been a rather lackluster season so far, particularly after a strong 2009. He left the track quickly without comment, leaving crew chief Darian Grubb to speak: "

   -- Kasey Kahne started from the pole, then vanished, then suddenly reappeared near the end and wound up fourth. "I just needed to settle in.
   "Hopefully it was a good show.  I know it was exciting from my seat."

    -- Fuel mileage was part of the game, and Greg Biffle, after major calculations by crew chief Greg Erwin, managed to go the final 43 laps – 86 miles – on his last fill-up. That helped the Biff finish seventh; he was running for fourth at the end but his tires faded.
   The last few laps were really wild, Biffle said: "Guys were running into each other...Jeff Gordon ran me off the track. Everybody is running everybody off the track."

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  Martin Truex Jr. looks at his banged up car after a run-in with Jeff Gordon at Sonoma (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)