Johnson poised to show his racing days are not over
7-time Cup champ looks to prove critics wrong, win an 8th.
Jimmie CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Johnson, one of the most polite and professional athletes in sports, rarely gets rattled. Unless he is being trolled on social media.
Johnson’s patience was very much tested last season, the worst of his NASCAR career. He could handle the losing, the internal struggles at Hendrick Motorsports and the final races with longtime crew chief Chad Knaus.
It was the strangers who suggested his best days are over that got under Johnson’s skin and forced him to clap back on Twitter.
His responses were sometimes humorous if out of character for Johnson, until he stumbled upon a post that called him a “has been” and told him to retire.
“I’m far from done JA,” Johnson wrote in a rebuke last October.
The retort is now his mantra as Johnson heads into the 2019 season determined to prove he is still capable of winning a record eighth Cup championship. He had shirts printed and distributed to friends, and fivetime IndyCar champion Scott Dixon recently honored his NASCAR contemporary with a video of him exercising in a “I’m not done yet JA” shirt.
Johnson has seven championships, tied with Hall of Famers Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt for most in NASCAR, and with 83 career victories he is just two wins shy of sole possession of fourth place on the all-time list. He has nothing to prove to anyone, but his aggravation is real at the suggestion he should hang it up.
“I get to say when I’m done,” Johnson said. “It did weigh on me and I can’t wait to win and win often. I think that would be something really nice to say back to all those people that suggested that I was washed up and done.”
Johnson begins his 18th season this week at Daytona International Speedway, with a new-look No. 48 team. Lowe’s had sponsored his car since his 2002 rookie year but left NASCAR at the end of last season. Ally Financial Inc. is his new sponsor and its paint scheme and color palette are the first significant changes to the No. 48 Chevrolet since the team launched with Johnson.
There’s been a change at the top, too, as team owner Rick Hendrick split Johnson and Knaus. It was Knaus who built the team from scratch, back in 2002, and he and Johnson had been together from the start.
Although successful, the duo had their disagreements and Hendrick on at least one occasion threatened to separate them. They won their seventh title together in 2016 but the need for a change emerged the very next season when Johnson won three races but never truly contended for
the title.