Johnson ready to race after cancer scare
LONG POND » 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 slow-growing 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. There was just one catch. “When I explained to them I couldn’t be sweat free or activity free for as long as they hoped for recovery, it just got tricky on when I could time it,” he said. “I didn’t want to wait until the end of the season.”
After the procedure, Johnson waited about an hour for more lab work to make sure no additional cancerous cells were found. He was all clear, needed about 22 stitches and was out the door in about four hours.
The noted fitness freak was back on his bike on Wednesday and out for a run on Thursday. Dover in a race that became derailed when a tire came off the No. 18 Toyota during a pit stop.
That’s a big no-no in NASCAR and the Joe Gibbs Racing team was slapped with some big penalties. Busch crew chief Adam Stevens, tire carrier Kenny Barber and tire changer Jake Seminara were suspended four races for the infraction, and their punishments start at Pocono.
Race engineer Ben Beshore is the interim crew chief.
“I think it just shows Adam Stevens is able to prepare his team, prepare his cars,” Busch said. “You’ve got to have good personnel and Adam chooses all that. Joe gives us all the right tools we need in order to be successful.”