For years Jimmie Johnson was thought to be superhuman.
His Lowe’s Chevrolet team from Hendrick Motorsports was called invincible. Because year after year it seemed Johnson never stumbled, never faltered. The team built bulletproof cars and appeared unbeatable, they were best in the business.
When Johnson failed win the championship in 2011, after having won five straight, all those compliments died down and the critics jumped at the chance to call Johnson human after all. Insisting that his reign was over as was the domination he once knew.
The 2013 season has been both kind and harsh to Johnson. He’s won four races and leads the point standings over Clint Bowyer by an incredible 75 points. Johnson has dominated races and stirred the critics back up.
Except, for every race Johnson and company have won this year, they’ve left another one on the table. Sunday in Indianapolis Johnson was looking for his fifth Brickyard 400 win and trying to make it back-to-back at the famed speedway.
And once again, Johnson dominated the event by leading a race high 73 laps. He was the leader as the final round of green flag pit stops began with less than 30 laps to go. Taking four tires and fuel it should have been a 12 or 13 second stop, instead the rear tire carrier came around to the left side slow.
Johnson came off pit road after a 17 second stop and watched Ryan Newman, the only other driver who could stay with him, take two tires and later inherit the lead. A seven second difference was too much for Johnson to overcome; he finished second to Newman.
“I don’t know what the distance was at the end. I would have been a lot closer to him,” Johnson said afterwards, as he’ll have to wait another year to try and win an unprecedented fifth Brickyard 400.
“Catching them and then passing them is different. I’m not sure what the delta was when I entered the track, how big of a gap I had from the 39 [Newman] to us. But we definitely had a mistake on our stop. Could have been four seconds closer leaving pit road.”
When Johnson took the four tires, as well as having the slow stop, it possibly changed the pit stop call for Newman’s team. They took two tires and were off pit road even quicker than had they taken four. Johnson tried not to hang his head when looking back on the course of events.
“Stuff happens. Everybody scans us. When you’re the dominant car, they’re going to do the opposite of what you do. I think I pitted before them, so it was an easy call for them to do the opposite. The 2 [tires] gave them the track position they needed. With the mistake, they had good track position,” he said.
Mistakes have been massive for the 48 team this season. Sunday was another missed opportunity with a car that should have been in Victory Lane. Think of all the lost wins and certainly the bonus points that have disappeared into thin air.
There was the restart controversy in Dover, where Johnson led 143 laps but was deemed to have jumped the final restart with 19 laps to go. It took him from second to 17th.
In Michigan, in which he again complained of a restart, the team continually lost spots on pit road and he had to make it up on track. He charged to second and was hunting down eventual winner Greg Biffle before he blew a right front tire and hit the wall.
And how can anyone forget Kentucky. Again the class of the field was the Lowe’s Chevy, leading 182 of the race’s 267 laps. But on a late restart Johnson spun himself out, after which he claimed eventual winner Matt Kenseth slowed down the start.
Indianapolis was another mistake in as many weeks. Uncharacteristic for a team that has made their living when the pressure is on. What was once a sure thing – Johnson dominating and heading toward victory – becomes a nail bitter when the pay window opens.
That was when they shined, now they’re trying to right the ship. After the checkered flag flew, crew chief Chad Knaus complimented the team on a solid race but acknowledged there is still some work to be done.
“We’ll try. What’s on my mind, we win as a team, lose as a team,” Johnson stated when asked how quickly everyone would be able to get over Sunday’s disappointment.
“There’s been some late race mistakes on my behalf that have taken race wins away from us. Granted not a major event like this. But we win as a team, lose as a team. We still ended up second. We have a lot to be proud over the course of the weekend. We’ll do the best to let it roll off our shoulders by tomorrow afternoon.”
The good news, Pocono comes next where Johnson won last month. A week after they let a race win slip away. They again head north needed to rebound and needed to get all the bugs worked out now before the Chase begins in six weeks.
