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[/media-credit]Well some may have been looking at the wigs on the heads of the No. 48 Lowes team laughing, Johnson says it was a magic piece to their success.
“I’m just proud of this hair,” he says. “The hair really brought some speed to the team. I could see our engine tuner who is catching the front tires that came across on pit stops, and I got a laugh every time I came on to pit road.”
While the hair may have been there for jokes to go with the promotion of Madagascar 3, there’s no joking matter about the success of the No. 48 team over the past couple of weeks. In the span of four races including the All-Star race, they have three wins. They also won the pit crew challenge a couple weeks ago, which they displayed those skills with fast stops all day.
“Clearly we had a fast race car, amazing pit stops,” Johnson says. “Strategy, when you lead the most laps, sometimes at the end the way the cautions fall it can backfire on the dominant car, and the way cautions fell today, it allowed us to really flex our muscle and bring home the win.”
In total, Johnson led 289 of the 400 laps on the way to his 57th career victory in 376 starts. It also marked his seventh win at Dover, tying Bobby Allison and Richard Petty for the most career wins at Dover.
“It’s just a huge honor,” Johnson says. “I’m never one that paid attention to stats. I truthfully never thought I would be a guy that would build up any cool stats and here I am with some pretty cool stats. With legends of our sport and guys that I’ve looked up to.”
The chassis that the No. 48 team was running was a brand new chassis, which showcased all of the research and development by the Hendrick Motorsports team lately to make their cars as fast as needed.
“We came off the truck and we were real fast right off the box,” crew chief Chad Knaus says. “We were trying a different set up and Jimmie felt like we needed to do something different. He made a big call personally for us to shift the setup in the race car and we did and he felt like it was some big changes. So we had to significantly change the race car once we got here. First in qualifying, Jimmie did a great job with the car then and that led us down the path we were today. Man, it went great. It went really well. It was a lot of fun.”
Knaus adds that it showcases the effort that the Hendrick Motorsports team is putting in to have the cars ready, from top to bottom, since the sport is ever-changing and it’s difficult to stay on top.
“To get to where we are, a solid three or four weeks for Hendrick Motorsports is nice,” he adds.
The 200th win for Hendrick Motorsports at Darlington Raceway last month released the string of success that they’ve been on, but Johnson says he doesn’t think the win had anything to do with reliving any pressure.
“We, of course, wanted to be the team to win the 200 for Rick, but we didn’t sit there and obsess over it and talk about it,” Johnson says. “We were really so close since really the start of the year to Victory Lane. We were more focused on our deal and not making mistakes, and continuing with the technical side of the race car that has given us the speed that we are finding right now.”
Johnson adds it was about refining their package and not making mistakes, which everything just so happened to come together at Darlington to put the win together. He then continues on to say that since, they’ve been flawless and had the speed to continue the string.
Well this may have the No. 48 team looking like championship favourites for their sixth championship, Johnson says it’s too early to talk about the championship.
“I mean, we are doing the things right now that will win one, but we need to do this in September and on,” Johnson says. “You know, it’s nice to have the success right now because the last two years, we have been working very hard in a lot of areas and when you have success and continued success, you narrow down your focus in where you need to be.”
He says right now he’s just concentrated on making the Chase and the two victories put him in good contention to do that.
“We need to keep the pressure on and roll into September with the same thing going on in order to win a championship,” Johnson continues. “When you look at what Tony and Carl went through last year, that’s a perfect example. You just don’t show up and think everything is going to turn out as you hoped. You have to get in there and race hard for all ten races.”
