NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
DAYTONA SPEEDWEEKS MEDIA DAY
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 16, 2012
JIMMIE JOHNSON NO. 48 LOWES CHEVROLET, met with members of the media today at Daytona International Speedway and discussed crew changes, losing the 2011 championship, the off season and Danica Patrick’s entry into the Cup series. FULL TRANSCRIPT:
DO YOU HAVE ANY CREW CHANGES TO ANNOUNCE THIS YEAR?: “No, no it’s all the same guys at the No. 48 team, we feel that the group of guys we have assembled are amazing do an awesome job. Finishing sixth last year was not what we had in mind, but it wasn’t fallen on any one person shoulders. We have a very strong group of people who make decisions on making the car go and over the wall our guys continue to evolve and we invested into a system that started last year that is starting to pay off now and we feel good about where we are on pit road.”
QUESTION INAUDIBLE: “There are a lot of things we ignore through the course of a year, especially over the last six years and what I have been through. It was nice just to catch up and scratch things off the list for my own personal things my “honey-do” list. Then also to get closer to racing, once we got through the holidays, getting back with Chad and the team, understanding the dynamic at the shop really evaluating what we did in 2011 and how we can do a better job so the real work on 2012 started after January 1st, up until then, I just separated myself. It was nice to just get away and have weekends off, have a normal life, visit with friends and go through all that. Since the new year, I have been really focused on coming back for 2012.”
HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO BALANCE CHANGING YOUR APPROACH TO A NEW YEAR WHEN YOU ARE A GREAT TEAM AND YOU KNOW YOU CANNOT WIN THEM ALL?: “I’m just upset at the way we lost the championship last year. At points within the chase we had momentum and things going our way. When I look back on it I find the way in which we lost it is the tough thing. If we get beat, we get beat and I just don’t want to, we beat ourselves, and I just don’t want to do that again.”
WHAT SPECIFICALLY DO YOU THINK YOU COULD HAVE DONE BETTER LOOKING BACK AT LAST SEASON?: “ I didn’t realize that over the five years or six years that we didn’t change as much maybe as we needed to and evolve. It’s tough to leave a successful road map and Chad and the team and I have been good at reinventing ourselves each year. But until the streak was broken looking back at this off season what we have been through and trying to rebuild the team and make sure we are looking at everything we can, we have a different depth. I’m focusing on my interaction with the team, how I provide information with the team, what information I’m looking at, there are a lot of things I haven’t done in the past and I felt like I was one of the most in depth drivers out there. I’m trying to even take that steps further now, so because of the loss we have been able to dig deeper and get away from the road map we’ve built and challenge ourselves more. At the same time the garage area has been extremely focused on everything the No. 48 car has done over the last six years, so maybe years three or four a lot of guys came out direction and really paid attention to what we were doing and they caught us and we got beat. We have to reinvent ourselves in some ways this year and we are ready for it.”
DO YOU THINK TOO MUCH WAS MADE OUT OF THE TIMES DURING THE YEAR WHEN WE EAVESDROPPED ON YOUR CONVERSATIONS WITH CHAD AND YOU GUYS WERE NOT IN AGREEMENT ON STUFF? : “Yeah I do. We through the years have had plenty of colorful moments and yet it hasn’t been to the degree of some guys, but the problem is the decision making process gets hampered when emotions are high. It is a fine line because everyone needs to vent, so when you pop off and vent and you typically feel a lot better after you do that. Chad and I have always been able to do that, but last year and I think a lot of it was due to trying to keep the streak alive and other pressures we didn’t recognize until the championship was gone. Those pressures have conjured things up and they started to affect the decision making process. You need to be able to vent and blow some steam off and put someone in place if need be, yell at your crew chief is need be. They yell at drivers all the time, that kind of stuff needs to happen, but in the end, it wasn’t necessarily what was coming out of our mouths it was a lot of factors that affected the decision making process.”
HOW IMPORTANT WILL IT BE THIS YEAR TO GET OFF TO A REALLY STRONG START TO THE YEAR? DOES IT FEEL MAYBE MORE IMPORTANT THIS YEAR IN TERMS OF MAKING A STATEMENT AND REALLY GETTING IT GOING EARLY?: “Yeah, it’s important, I look at the Daytona 500 as we are only here to win the race if we finish fifth, sure the points are nice, but I like a lot of others will do anything to win this race even if it means a last lap crash and you finish 40th. Once we get out of this race, then a quick start, I think means a lot. It reflects on the off season and what the teams have done there. Anytime you can get points in your back pocket and start separating yourself from tenth or win a race or two to fix that wild card scenario and try to lock yourself in. It makes you sleep better. Nobody likes to go to Richmond stressing about that race. That mindset starts at Phoenix and you really start thinking about things then. The [Daytona] 500 it is the biggest race we have so you’re going to do anything and everything you can to win it.”
WHEN DID YOU REALIZE YOUR CHAMPIONSHIP RUN WAS OVER LAST YEAR? “The Charlotte crash really started the thought process. Then Talladega, it was evident that window was closing and that I needed a lot of things to happen to the No. 14 and No. 99. Then we left Phoenix and I still had that fire and hope that I wouldn’t be out of it that there might be a mistake and I wanted to be ready for it. But when I left Phoenix it was crazy just feeling the pressure kind of leave. I didn’t realize what was on me and the high standard I had hoped for myself or the pressure I was carrying and when it left it was kind of like, ok there it goes, now it’s time to enjoy Homestead. I went down there and had a really great time, I think we had a really fast car, but it was a wild experience to feel the pressure leave from Phoenix until I saw all the tweets about the champion’s lunch taking place on the Wednesday. Then that championship mind set hit me again and I became really disappointed that I wasn’t there at that luncheon and apart of all of it.”
HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED ANY DEPRESSION OR ANYTHING? “No, no depression. Just in some ways leaving Phoenix there was some relief when the pressure was lifting. In Homestead when that started just disappointment and frustration which led to me realizing that I just needed to unwind through the off season and it kind of started my whole process. I had made some decisions about not running the Rolex 24 before that but it just cemented the fact that I needed some time just to decompress and make sure that I come back this year refreshed and excited. There is just an energy you have when you walk through those gates as a rookie and every veteran comes in excited and hungry. There is something a little different when you come in and you are early in your career. I feel like I have found those things again. I’m walking in here with a different set of eyes than I have the last five or six years.”
WHEN YOU FELT THE PRESSURE LIFTING WAS THAT THE MOST PRESSURE YOU FELT SINCE YOU HAVE BEEN IN THE SPORT? “I don’t know. We quickly forget things. The pressure to survive that first year and to win a race that I had on myself, I felt like I’d be unemployed if I didn’t win by the second year at the latest. I don’t know it’s close to it. It’s hard to relive each event, but there was a lot for sure.”
IS THIS THE ONLY RACE LEFT THAT IS BIGGER THAN THE CHASE?: “I would say here and the Brickyard, depending on where a driver is from. If I had to pick one or the other it would depend on what the drivers racing upbringing was, but I would say these two races are the ones.”
WE UNDERSTAND KEVIN HARVICK HAS CONSULTED WITH YOU ABOUT BEING A FATHER, HOW HIS LIFE IS GOING TO CHANGE. WHAT HAVE YOU TOLD HIM? WHAT KIND OF INTERACTION HAVE YOU HAD ABOUT THAT?: “We haven’t really talked much through the off season, but our motorhomes seem to be parked next to one another and as my wife and I have been out with our daughter, he is outside, watching and asking questions from time to time. It all made sense when I saw they announced that DeLana was pregnant. Now when I look back there were a lot of little questions that make sense why he was asking.”
YOU’VE KNOWN HIM [HARVICK] BACK TO THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA DAYS. HOW DO YOU THINK IT WILL CHANGE HIM, IS HE READY FOR IT? “I think it is going to be great for him. I think we all understand now why the Nationwide and Truck team shut down. I’m happy they are going to have the time to be with their family and be a part of it. As we all know this is a tough schedule. Speaking from 19 months of experience you don’t want to leave the house. You want to be with your family everyday it’s just such a cool experience. I know it would be really tough on him and DeLana if they still had their Nationwide and Truck teams and all the demands that come with it. I think he has made some great decisions already. They just need to buckle in they are going to have a great experience.”
YOU’VE HAD TO DEAL WITH THE PHENOMENA THAT IS DALE JR., NOW DANICA IS COMING OVER, WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT HER PERSONALLY? HAVE YOU SPENT TIME WITH HER? HOW DO YOU THINK SHE WILL AFFECT THE SPORT IN GENERAL? “I think she is great for our sport. We need people tuned in and watching and certainly new fans are important to all of us. I think she brings in a lot of new fans, she has a big following. She is been able to get our sport onto a different platform, with mainstream media and things that she is involved with outside of racing. I’m excited for it. I think it is going to be great. I’ve gotten to know her a little bit over the last year or so. She is very committed to the sport, very committed to being a racer, which is great to see and shows with what she has been able to accomplish on track. The thing she is going to have to fight through this year is with that big spotlight burning on her, some she has created because she has a brand she is promoting and building, and a very successful brand, there is an intense spotlight on her, every move she makes is going to be criticized good and bad. Her performance, there is a big hurdle there for her to accomplish on track and it’s going to be a challenge for her.
“She has my support. I know she has our sports support, she is with Tony and Ryan and they will be able to help her out tremendously. Obviously on the Nationwide side she has a lot of good people to pull from there as well. If she is patient with her development and her fan base is, I think she is going to be here for a long time and be very successful.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON HER [DANICA] STARTING AT DAYTONA THEN NOT GETTING BACK INTO A CUP CAR UNTIL DARLINGTON? “I think it is smart for her to run the 500. She did a great job in the Nationwide series race, being able to come back and build off of that is important. I think she will have a strong showing here. The she goes into a lot of tracks, I’m surprised at some of the races they chose, I understand because Tony is leading that brigade, saying hey you need to come get experience on these tracks right away, but it is putting her in that position that people need to understand she is going to the toughest tracks, the toughest sport, the toughest division and expectations just need to be real across the board for what she does in her first year on track.”
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