While Jimmie Johnson can mathematically point his way into the championship round, this weekend’s Can-Am 500 at Phoenix Raceway is realistically a must-win scenario.
He currently sits 49-points behind Brad Keselowski for the final spot in the Championship 4 round in next week’s Ford Ecoboost 400. He books his ticket with a win or if Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex Jr. or a non-Playoff driver wins, and gets help.
“It’s a pretty easy approach for us. We’re in a must-win-situation,” he said. “We wish we were in a better points scenario, but that’s not the case. This team thrives on pressure and adversity and we’re certainly in the position right now.”
Johnson, who’s famously made the Playoffs his sandbox over the last 14 years, has been mediocre through the 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.
He started out with two top-10 finishes in the Round of 16, and posted his first top-five since his win at Dover International Speedway back in June. But in the five races since, he’s scored only one top-10 finish.
“At the end of the day chasing speed is really the culprit,” he said. “And I feel that next year we’ll be in a much better position with the Camaro body on the race car. So, you start making decisions late spring and early summer, trying to extract speed out of the cars. And that doesn’t always make them comfortable to drive. So, it’s hard to say it’s just one thing, but the start of the process is just trying to make our cars faster. And, at times we’ve not made the best decisions and have made them very hard to drive. I think Texas was an example of that and also Kansas. We spun twice there. So, it’s just trying to make the cars faster.”
Johnson’s run through the Round of 8 has been a microcosm of his season. To quote Motor Racing Network turn announcer Dave Moody, “I can’t remember a time at Martinsville when Jimmie Johnson had absolutely no problems whatsoever, and still ran around 18th.”
He was an absolute non-factor, despite no problems all day. The following week at Texas, he made an unscheduled stop for a vibration and they never recovered, finishing 27th.
So what does Johnson and his team do now, throw out the notebook and try something new?
“Everything has been tried at this point,” he said. “I think we have to make decisions once we get on track this morning and see where that set-up leads us and if we’re ahead on speed, then we stay tight to that set-up. If we’re not where we need to be, we throw it all out. We can’t leave any questions on the table going into Saturday night. We need to try all variations of set-ups and try anything and everything we can today and tomorrow to get that car right.”
With the Sun setting on the 2017 season, the championship hopes of Mr. Seven-Time might see an early curtain call.
