His kind of place
Johnson excited for first Indy 500
INDIANAPOLIS — Jimmie Johnson shared late-night laughs with Jimmy Fallon, crushed the fastest speeds of his life, signed autographs for fellow drivers and saved a sideways slide in his first Indianapolis 500 qualifying run.
All that’s left for the 46-yearold Indy 500 rookie is winning the race.
Johnson has had the confidence of a champion at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. His team owner noticed. So have other IndyCar drivers. Even former competitors in his old NASCAR life are watching how Johnson fares at the Brickyard.
He’s not the favorite Sunday to win the 106th Indianapolis 500, but Johnson is the driver to watch for good reason: A victory in his first try would put him alongside Mario Andretti and A.J. Foyt as the only drivers to win both the Indy 500 and the Daytona 500.
If Johnson pulls it off, just try to argue he’s not one of the greatest ever in American motorsports.
It’s not like he wasn’t already in the conversation.
That’s the wild part. Johnson doesn’t even need to be soaking in the sights and sounds among the bricks, the milk, the belting out of “Back Home Again in Indiana.” While competing in NASCAR’s top-tier Cup Series for two decades, he won 83 races, matched Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty for the alltime record with seven season championships and could have walked away from racing after 2020 with his legacy secure.
Instead of enjoying the riches and spoils of his fame, or settling into a comfortable retirement with his wife and two young daughters while splitting time between his lavish homes, he was drawn to Indianapolis and the lure of open-wheel cars.
Johnson jumped to the IndyCar Series last season to drive for Chip Ganassi Racing. But he skipped the ovals, where speeds top 200 mph and danger beckons on every turn. Johnson’s wife, Chani, had deep apprehension about the safety of open-wheel racing, and the driver respected her concerns.
His first Indianapolis 500 was last year, but only as an NBC Sports analyst sidelined in street clothes. Instantly hooked on the pageantry and the thrilling ending, Johnson decided he could not sit out the race again.
He convinced his wife that safety advancements such as the cockpit-protecting aero-screen decreased the risk of deadly injury. So he’s back at the Brickyard in the familiar No. 48, and he’s in Indy to win it — with his dad along for the ride, working as a spotter.
“This isn’t Indy Light this year,” Johnson said. “It’s Indy Heavy.”
Dale Earnhardt Jr., the son of the late NASCAR Hall of Famer who died in a crash at the 2001 Daytona 500, was one of Johnson’s Cup Series teammates at Hendrick Motorsports. He empathized with Chani Johnson’s fears of watching Johnson try to tame the crowded field and the risky maneuvers required at IMS.
“I am full of anxiety that he’s going to push, push, push too hard, and somehow that might put him in a bad situation,” Earnhardt said. “He’s gotten so, so close a few times already this month to some bad situations. But he’s a pro. You trust that he knows what he’s out there doing, understanding the limits of the car.”
Johnson scared even himself during qualifying when he wrestled his car out of a sideways slide that seemed headed toward a massive crash at 230 mph. He lost his shot at the pole position — CGR teammate Scott Dixon blazed to the top spot last weekend — and will start 12th, on the outside of the fourth row with former Indy 500 winners Will Power and Takuma Sato.
And yet Johnson is an A-lister at Indy.
He has made the promotional rounds from late-night TV shows to early morning risers, traditional sports programming and even People magazine. Everyone wants a slice of Johnson’s time, and he has squeezed in all he could, even hustling out of the media center straight to the paddock to prep for final practice after his longtime public relations representative received a prestigious award.
“I don’t look at it in terms of having a celebrity,” team owner Ganassi said. “I look at in terms of having a good guy in the car (who) is a good teammate that can win the race.”
Indy fans love him, and Johnson got the loudest ovation Saturday when he was introduced at the track at the public drivers’ meeting.
“It’s been cooler and more amazing and fun than I could have ever dreamed of,” he told the crowd as he stood a foot or two away from the Borg-Warner Trophy.
Johnson, who said he’s open to competing in the Indy 500 and then the Cup Series’ Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on the same day, won four times at the Brickyard in NASCAR. But the childhood dream of chugging milk and celebrating as the Indy 500 champion will require overcoming stout obstacles, starting within his own team.
He has the worst starting spot of the five Ganassi qualifiers, and it’s rare for rookies to win, though Juan Pablo Montoya (2000), Helio Castroneves (2001) and Alexander Rossi (2016) have done it. Like Johnson, all three were veterans of other racing series.
Johnson’s IndyCar results have been more middling than menacing, with no top-three finishes in 17 career races, but he finished sixth at Texas Motor Speedway in March in his first open-wheel race on an oval track. Was it a sneak peek that contention lies ahead?
His former Hendrick teammate wasn’t worried about that.
“I’m just pulling for him to have a great experience in the race,” Earnhardt said, “and have a result that he can be happy with and smile about in the end.”
Johnson will be plenty happy if he can kiss the bricks one more time at racing’s most storied track.