There aren’t many tracks on the NASCAR circuit that you can say that Jimmie Johnson isn’t good at – however, Richmond is one of those. In 24 career starts at Richmond, Johnson only has eight top-10 finishes. In the last three years, Johnson has only two top-10s in those races with two of those finishes being outside of the top 30.
“We suck here. We’re terrible and hopefully we are a lot better this weekend,” Johnson commented. “The last couple trips especially – we have been junk. So the results don’t reflect the effort, so that is the disappointing part. And I know that Chad has worked very hard once again to get us a good car and hopefully it will be on the track and we will have good speed right off the truck.”
While some tracks a driver can say they struggle for this reason or for that reason, Johnson says that his team doesn’t quite know why they’e struggled so much at Richmond. He says that they’ve tried many different avenues to hopefully correct their struggles, but none of them have worked out yet.
Few places and things can get underneath Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus’ skin, but without a doubt Richmond is one of them as Johnson says it’s frustrating to continue to struggle at one particular track on the schedule.
Johnson did recalled a time when the track wasn’t so frustrating, which was when track promoters used to put a sealer down on the track, which helped widen the groove.
“You could move around the race track to find some grip and really get your right sides (tires) on the edge to get some grip and speed out of the race car,” Johnson commented. “It might be something in that but they don’t have sealer down so I can’t count on that this weekend.”
Despite the frustration and struggles, Johnson says he still enjoys coming to Richmond as the track puts on a great show for the fans, adding that there should be more short tracks on the schedule.
In trying to search for those answers, certainly extra hours begin to get added on by a crew chief and team. However, that’s nothing new as Chad Knaus is known as one of the most hard working crew chiefs in the garage. Over the years, though, Johnson has encouraged Knaus to take more time off and not work as much as he has.
“I am surprised he has made it as long as he has working the hours and for the years that he has been in this sport,” Johnson added. “But unfortunately and usually when he does take time off and he returns, and if we don’t have the performance that we should – then he thinks the two are related. Just because he took two or three days off for himself, and we have two or three bad races, there is no correlation there. But in his mind and the way he operates, he thinks ‘well I shouldn’t vacation, I am not supposed to vacation, I am supposed to work around the clock’.”
Johnson says that he continues to push Knaus to take the time off and relax, however hasn’t been able to find a total balance yet.
“I hope he does find better balance because the guy deserves it and he is not going to last 10 more years in this sport if he works around the clock like he has,” Johnson continued.
