NASCAR star Jimmie Johnson ready to race after cancer scare

Jimmie Johnson put the beer on ice and held a muted victory celebration. The morning after he hoisted another NASCAR trophy in victory lane, Johnson was in New York to have a form of skin cancer cut out of his right shoulder. Johnson surprised the auto racing community Monday when he tweeted that he was on a table having a procedure to remove a basal-cell carcinoma, a common and slowgrowing form of skin cancer. Growing up in Southern California, Johnson was always outdoors when he wasn’t out racing motorcycles.

“I could vividly remember a lot of sunburns,’’ Johnson said. “That sun exposure on a mole, there’s just consequences.’’ In his first public comments about the cancer scare, Johnson told The Associated Press on Friday he was diagnosed in January.

Johnson’s physician told the seven-time NASCAR champion during an annual checkup he had “a mole that was kind of changing shape.’’ A biopsy confirmed he had skin cancer, but it had not spread and it was not a more severe cancer such as melanoma. “Carcinoma doesn’t spread. It doesn’t go to the glands,’’ Johnson said ahead of this weekend’s race at Pocono Raceway. “They just have to dig it out and you’re good to go. Once I understood that, my reaction to the ‘C’ word calmed down.’’

The 41-year-old Johnson, married with two daughters, was told he could wait until the end of the year to have the carcinoma removed. Johnson couldn’t wait that long. He knew he wanted it done in New York and the proximity to the track in Dover, Delaware, helped with the timing.