Jimmie Johnson doesn’t really care what Kyle Busch or Brad Keselowski have done recently. Or what any driver has done in the first 26 races that maybe he hasn’t, like win a few races and go on hot streaks.
[media-credit name=”Brad Keppel” align=”alignright” width=”244″]
[/media-credit]That’s because Johnson knows when it comes time for the Chase he’s the man that everyone will be watching. He also knows that when the Chase starts the first half of the year doesn’t mean a thing.
“I don’t fault anyone for looking at the last five [races] and saying [this] driver has been hot,” said Johnson in Atlanta. “They’ve been qualifying well, they’ve been winning races. It’s the obvious. Absolutely they are doing the right things there. That momentum is very, very, very helpful for the driver, for the team. It helps build confidence, everything is going the right direction.”
But says Johnson, “I guess this is where this phrase came from that I mentioned a few times, the final ten is its own environment. It’s its own world. What you did in the first 26, yeah there are some small things mentally, emotionally and even with some setups, I guess you that you carry into the Chase. You start over and when you start over it’s a while new world and everybody is a threat at that point.”
Johnson believes that mentally strong teams can overcome bad races they may have leading up to the Chase. For others, just because things are going good now doesn’t mean they’ll stay that way.
The reigning five-time and defending Sprint Cup Series champion has been doing a lot of Chase talking lately. After believing that he got in Denny Hamlin’s head last year during the Chase, Johnson started chided Keselowski about it two weeks ago. Attempting to get a head start getting in the head of one of the hottest drivers on the circuit.
When he’s not playing mind games though, Johnson isn’t afraid to let his competition know he has the experience of past Chases and he’s ready to use it. It’s experience that helps with his emotions and what he says keeps him from riding a roller coaster.
“I’m not going to let the highs take me too high and I’m not going to let the lows take me too low,” Johnson said. “I know what I need to do and I know what my team needs to do to win a sixth championship. Fortunately we have a road map that’s worked in years past. And we’ve had to fall on our experience, especially last year, to win the championship. And hopefully we’ll be able to do that again this year.”
This year, unlike the years past that Johnson talks about, things have been different. While he’s tied for the point lead he’s only been to victory lane once this season, Talladega in April. He’s been shutout at tracks he normally dominates like Martinsville and Phoenix.
Instead of focusing on his lack of bonus points or who the current favorites are, Johnson’s using his words to get one up on the competition. Letting them know now that come the Chase they’re going to hear voices in their heads and there will be pressure that they’ve never felt before, and that it does weird things to drivers in and out of the car. Johnson though, will be immune to it.
“Experience helped me and the team focus on the right things,” Johnson says about his past championships. “You can focus in a lot of areas and during the Chase and especially as it winds down, the brain starts thinking up a lot of stuff; experience over the years has helped me focus in the right areas.”
Focus Johnson will be relying on to beat the likes of Keselowski and Busch during the Chase.
