NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
GEICO 500
TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
OCTOBER 17, 2014
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media today at Talladega Superspeedway. He discussed the pressures of advancing in the Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship and racing at Talladega, his relationship with crew chief Chad Knaus, drafting at Talladega and other topics. FULL TRANSCRIPT:
TALK A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT BEING A TALLADEGA THIS WEEKEND.
“I’m excited to go racing. Our plate program has been pretty strong and our car has been fast. We won a few plate races last year and we certainly need to do that this year to keep my championship hopes alive. When I reflect back on the Chase season so far, we’ve certainly not had the speed that we wanted in our cars. But based on the majority of our performances, we’ve kept ourselves in the mix where we had two bad races. Two bad races would have eliminated me from any opportunity of winning a championship in each previous format. So I feel like I have a third opportunity this weekend. Granted it’s a tough one and a lofty goal; there are many other guys out there with the same goal, not only from a Chase situation but also trying to win a race this year. I’ve got a lot of work ahead for myself and this team this weekend so we’re ready for the challenge. We’ll get out there to work and see what happens.”
THE BUZZWORD HAS BEEN INTENSITY FOR THIS CHASE SO FAR BUT THIS TRACK HAS BEEN CHAOS AND HEARTBREAK, TOO. DO YOU HAVE ANY THOUGHTS ON THAT CONSIDERING WHERE YOU SIT IN POINTS AND ALSO REFLECT ON LAST WEEKEND AFTER THE RACE?
“Yeah, the intensity here… we’ve seen races here that are very aggressive and competitive. Then we’ve seen races where the lead group of cars decided to run along the top and make it a single-file race. There is no rhyme or reason why that happens, so I think it’s hard to predict what the race will be like. But I can promise you that with four guys needing to win to transfer (to the Eliminator round), at the end of the race there will definitely be some racing. It may be the four of us on the bottom trying to find our way around in a different lane trying to get to the front. But there are at least four that have a really good reason to take chances, be aggressive and try to win. Plus a lot of other teams – with this race being so equal for so many – have a chance to win their first race of the year of the first race of the year. So I’d guess it will be an exciting race but again we just don’t know until we get out there.”
CONSIDERING YOUR CIRCUMSTANCE, DOES THIS CHANGE THE WAY YOU RACE AT TALLADEGA?
“I’ve put a lot of time and thought into my approach for this weekend. There really isn’t a clear vision for how to make it work. Racing for it can get you in trouble. Riding can get you in trouble. If you ride at some point you have to go to the front. With this rules package, it’s much more difficult to get track position. It seems like with maybe three pits stops to go, you need to have control of the race and maintain it – or at least be in first or second to be at the head of the line and give yourself a chance to win. So I don’t know… I really don’t. Maybe being cautious early will buy us some time and keep us on the road. From the halfway point of the race on, you have to fight for track position if you want to win.”
CAN YOU COMMENT ON WHERE YOU AND CHAD ARE AT CONSIDERING ALL THE HOOPLAH FROM LAST WEEK?
“Frustration is high, for sure. Chad and I in our relationship have had peaks and valleys. We’ve had times where there has been plenty of frustration on the radio. But who we are and what we are as a team and the way our relationship works and us moving forward… things are still as they have always been. It isn’t fun, and I’m sure people hear plenty of colorful things from drivers and crew chiefs during the course of a race. Last weekend there was plenty of color on our channel. It just comes with the territory. We’re not happy with where we’re at, and I don’t know why we would be. It’s unfortunate that sometimes those things are aired on the radio and innocent bystanders hear – children and others out there – but that’s just part of it. Depending on how this weekend goes, we’ll know what the rest of the year looks like for us. If we don’t win, it will be in our best interest to look at 2015 and what we need to do on all fronts for the ’15 season – including the rules package. Our vision will shift at that point and try to get a head start on the field and start where we need to be.”
YOU AND DALE JR. HAVE ALWAYS WORKED TOGETHER SO WELL HERE, ESPECIALLY LATE IN THE RACE. ON SUNDAY, YOU’RE ESSENTIALLY GOING FOR THE SAME THING WITH THE WIN TO ADVANCE. HOW DOES THAT CHANGE YOUR STRATEGY OF WORKING WITH DALE?
“This rules package really limits the amount of working together that takes place on the track. When we had the pushing rules, it was much easier to work with a teammate. Now it’s just by coincidence that you end up around each other and can help. At the end of a race, it doesn’t matter if Junior or my mom or anybody – I have to win. My quest to win a seventh championship is the thing I’m most concerned about. I know my teammates are going to think the same way and have the same approach. We’re out there to win for our teams and ourselves to move on and have a shot at the championship.”
WITH NO ONE LOCKED INTO THE NEXT ROUND EXCEPT THE 4 AND 22. EVERYONE ELSE IS SOMWHERE BETWEEN 26 POINTS IN AND 26 OUT. FOR THE GUYS THAT ARE IN THE TOP-EIGHT BUT NOT LOCKED IN, IS THERE ANY SAFE HAVEN FOR THEM AND ANYTHING THEY CAN DO TO STAY IN ESPECIALLY WITH YOU GUYS CHARGING HARD FROM THE BACK?
“Yeah, you can ride. You can literally ride in that second group and think of a 15th or 20th place finish and see what happens. I’ve been in that mindset before and man, it’s tough on your patience. Fortunately it did work out where there were cautions at the end and I was able to finish better than that. But there is a chance that you don’t have a lot of cars taken out; you’re 26 to the good and finish 30th riding in the back group. Now what? In that alone is where the interesting part of the weekend will come and how people decide how to play their cards will make one big part of this story. At the same time, we’ve seen single-file riding and we’ve seen five-wide racing. I don’t know what creates single-file and what creates five-wide. We’ll just have to see how it plays out.”
USUALLY WHEN YOU AND CHAD ARGUE, THERE IS A GREAT PIT CALL, YOU END UP WITH A TOP-FIVE FINISH AND YOU’RE ALL KIND OF LAUGHING ABOUT IT. LAST WEEK, MAYBE THE PIT CALL KIND OF STYMIED YOU A LITTLE BIT. IS THERE A FEELING THAT THIS SEASON HAS SLIPPED AWAY FROM YOU AND IT’S NOT MEANT TO BE?
“In certain respects we’ve struggled for dominance or being the fastest car in most years. I think 2005 was a similar year. I look at 2011 when Tony (Stewart) won and he and Carl (Edwards) had a fantastic battle. We just didn’t have any pace and were really frustrated. I know it’s easy for some to react quickly and say ‘It’s as worse they’ve been and things are so bad.’ We’ve been here before and we don’t like it. No one likes it. We’ll keep working hard to get out of it, and past history shows that we do. I think we were in a good position to finish well last weekend, although I don’t know if that would have changed much. Granted, it would give us a much better position on just a great finish here; we could have gone for a top-five and opened our window to transfer. We’ll take our lumps and go. That’s all we can do.”
WHAT ABOUT THE FORMAT OF QUALIFYING? IT’S ALWAYS NOT MEANT THAT MUCH HERE BUT DOES IT MEAN ANYTHING HERE WITH THE FORMAT OF THE CHASE?
“It’s still a plate race, so I don’t find that your qualifying position dictates how your race is going to go. You can qualify in the back and still win. It’s not like a traditional track where the lap matters and your setup matters and all of those things. Qualifying is going to be based on the group you’re in and if you catch someone in front of you. So there will be so much more luck and circumstances that determine your qualifying effort. With the short format, the two groups going out will put an emphasis on everybody going instead of playing the games we have been playing. The only thing that’s a little tricky is that the fact that fastest 24 cars go. You might get 20 cars from one group. What I’m getting is how that dynamic works on the track… it may make a little more sense if they took 12 from each group but we’ll have to see how this first round plays out.”
WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE INCIDENT AT THE END OF THE RACE? FROM WHAT YOU’VE SEEN, WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION TO NASCAR’S DECISION IN THE AFTERMATH? SECONDLY, WHAT’S THE DRIVER CORPS’ PERCEPTION OF BRAD KESELOWSKI?
“After the race… I still need to go back through and look at it all. I disconnected Sunday and was off to test in Phoenix. When I got to Phoenix, I got together with a couple of drivers and talked to everyone – I hate that I missed so much excitement following the race. It sounds like there were also some scary moments from the sounds of it. The importance needs to really shift toward safety in the garage area and safety on pit road. Those are two environments where there should be no exceptions. NASCAR’s ruling shows they are serious about that, and hopefully that keeps those areas safe.
“On the track, Brad has always been a pretty tough racer. I haven’t had any recent run-ins with him. He’s in a position where he doesn’t be in right now, along with a few other guys. When you’re in that position, it’s hard to hit that 100-percent mark. Sometimes you end up at 105 or 120 and you end up doing things you might not want to or make little mistakes that cost others. With the intensity being so high and other Chasers being affected by it, you have the situation that we do. I feel that Brad is very well respected for his talents on the racetrack. People get upset and people get frustrated, and stuff happens. It’s all by design. We have this format and this elimination process for a reason. But I think Brad is given a hard time by many in the garage for being so outspoken and other aspects of the whole thing of racing. But on the track, he gets it done.”
CAN YOU REMEMBER THE LAST TIME YOU WERE IN A SITUATION WHERE NOTHING ELSE MATTERED OTHER THAN WINNING, AND DOES THAT TAKE ANY PRESSURE OFF OF YOU FOR SUNDAY?
“Talladega takes a lot of pressure off of you until race time because there isn’t much you can do, so I’m trying to think through in mind if it’s different because it’s Talladega or the situation we’re in. In recent times, I’d have to go back to racing Denny (Hamlin) for the championship at Homestead knowing that was one of his better tracks, and I felt like I had to go down there and win the race to win the championship. They had some trouble that changed that, but the buildup to that was similar. But the majority in my head, the relaxed week and my calmness is due to this being Talladega. My job isn’t important until Sunday. Then I’m sure the pressure will kick in.”
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