Johnson paves way to win
Drives through illness for 7th Texas victory
FORT WORTH, Texas — Jimmie Johnson still knows how to get to Victory Lane at Texas, even from the back of the field on a track that had changed significantly since his first six wins there.
And while heating up in the cockpit because of an issue with getting fluids during the race.
“I’m not feeling the best, but we got into Victory Lane,” Johnson said before going to the infield care center to get treatment for apparent dehydration after his 81st career victory.
Crew chief Chad Knaus said there was some kind of malfunction with the system in the car, but wasn’t sure what the problem was.
“Jimmie felt like it was an isolated situation,” Knaus said. “We got him cooled off and he’s looking good. He’s ready to go have a weekend off like the rest of us.”
Johnson, who in 2016 won his record-tying seventh NASCAR Cup Series season championship, charged under Joey Logano with 16 laps to go to take the lead. The Hendrick Motorsports driver kept his No. 48 Chevrolet in front.
“I guess I remembered how to drive; and I guess this team remembered how to do it,” Johnson said. “I’m just real proud of this team. What a tough track and tough conditions. We were really in our wheelhouse and we were just able to execute all day.”
This was the first Cup race in Texas since the 1½mile facility was completely repaved and changes made to Turns 1 and 2 earlier this year. It was Johnson’s seventh victory at Texas, six in the previous 10 races there.
Kyle Larson, the season points leader, finished second for the fourth time this year, but also won at California. Logano, pole-sitter Kevin Harvick and Dale Earnhardt Jr. rounded out the top five.
Johnson had to start at the back of the 40-car field because of a tire change after a spin in qualifying. He had qualified 24th.
“Oh, probably on the second or third run I knew we were in good shape. From there, off we went,” he said. “It was so tough those first 23 laps in traffic. The air was very turbulent, the track wasn’t very clean.”
Johnson’s only top-10 finish in the first six races this season had been ninth at Phoenix. Earnhardt, his Hendrick teammate, had his first top-five finish since a runner-up at Pocono in June 2016, not long before he missed the final half of the season because of lingering concussions symptoms.
Ryan Blaney won the first two stages and gave Wood Brothers Racing, the oldest active team in NASCAR, its longest frontrunning car in a race in 35 years. Blaney, 23, finished 12th after leading 148 of 334 laps, the first time the team led more than 100 laps in a race since 1982.
Blaney first got the lead on the second early restart on lap 16, with a somewhat bold move around the outside of Harvick going through the reconfigured Turns 1 and 2, where the banking was reduced and the track widened.
During a caution on a few laps before the end of the second stage on lap 170, Blaney stayed on the track for a shot to win the stage while other cars pitted. Blaney restarted 20th after that stage and his stop, but after working back into the top 10, he overslid his pit on the last caution.
“That last pit stop was pretty discouraging,” Blaney said. “I don’t know what it was there at the end of segment two and that made everybody have split strategies, and we got in the back and couldn’t pass anybody. It was terrible to try to pass people.”
Logano regained the lead after not pitting on the final caution, but just didn’t have enough to hold off Johnson.
“I needed a 15-lap run instead of a 30-lap run,” Logano said. “Or a couple cautions in there and we would be standing in Victory Lane with a 12th-place car, and that would have been something.”
Both Cup races at Texas in 2016 had lengthy rain delays, and the November race was cut 41 laps short by more rain after starting nearly six hours late. There was no threat of rain Sunday — good thing the race wasn’t a day later, when storms are in the forecast — but there were wind gusts of 30 mph or more through the race.
The Wood Brothers team was formed in 1950, and its previous driver to lead at least 100 laps in a race was Neil Bonnett Oct. 31, 1982, at Rockingham. The team’s last victory was Trevor Bayne in the 2011 Daytona 500. The team hadn’t even had more than 100 laps led in a full season since Elliott Sadler’s 125 in 2001. Since the start of 2002 until this week, the team had only 161 laps led total, including two for Blaney in the seasonopening Daytona 500 this year.
After the traditional Easter weekend break, the next Cup race is April 23 at Bristol, Tenn.