Johnson looks for Texas mojo to end skid
FORT WORTH – Texas Motor Speedway President Eddie Gossage will be well-prepared for a possible Jimmie Johnson victory in Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500.
Gossage will have a Johnson bobblehead in victory lane in case the driver of the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet finds his way to his eighth Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race win at the track.
The track handed out Kevin Harvick bobbleheads for the fall race and Harvick won. Maybe that will be the case Sunday for Johnson, too. Right now, the seven-time series champ will take any kind of good mojo he can get as he’s off to one of the worst starts in his career.
“It could be a huge weekend for us,” said Johnson, who is the defending race champion. “The results haven’t been what we want. I think bigger strides aren’t far away for us. We’ve been working hard over the off weekend.”
Johnson is in the midst of a 29-race winless drought dating to last year at Dover. Johnson sits 17th in points with one top-10 finish in the new Chevrolet Camaro. The 83-time winner in the series hasn’t even led a lap in 2018.
While his start has been a cause for concern for his fans, Johnson is confident he and his team are doing everything they can to right the ship.
“It’s a team that’s used to winning on a regular basis and it impacts a lot of things,” he said. “Confidence is part of that, and on different levels everybody is doing a lot of self-reflection. Eventually over time you start to scratch things (reasons for slow start) off the list. My confidence has come back pretty strong. We’ve had a couple of good runs, and the performance at California (ninthplace finish) helped.
“More than anything it’s hard to see how much work has gone into the program, me, the team, engineers, all the departments and not closing the gap as much as we want. It’s a hard thing to live (with).”
Johnson doesn’t think the change from the Chevy SS to the Camaro has been the only reason his team has struggled. Kyle Larson is also in the Camaro, and while he hasn’t won he’s been a top-10 car. Setup issues have hurt Johnson, and so has the struggle to find grip.
As bad as things seem, Johnson was in a similar spot this time last year. He hadn’t won a race until coming to Texas and then reeled off all three of his 2017 wins in a seven-race stretch. Can that happen again? “I didn’t realize we were in same spot,” he said. “Toward the end of 2016 we had good speed in our car. We started 2016 a little slow. We’re at that slow period now and trying to rebuild.”
Johnson and his team aren’t the only ones who want to see the No. 48 winning again. With the recent retirements of the likes of Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr., NASCAR needs its biggest stars to excel.
“He’s the face of the sport — a seventime champ — in particular in light of the retirements that have occurred,” Gossage said. “You need an established star, and he’s clearly at the top of the heap and you need them to do well. It’s important. This is his longest winless streak, and he isn’t running badly.”
Of course, he’s coming to Texas where he truly is bobblehead-worthy. In addition to the seven Texas Motor Speedway Cup wins, Johnson has 15 top-five finishes and 21 top-10s in his 29 starts. But as good as he was in winning last April’s race, he finished 27th in the fall. What to expect at the track is also an unknown as it’s the second year of a repave.
“The track is probably a bigger variable than the car,” Johnson said. “It (the car) feels very similar. We’re all wondering how much the track has changed since last fall. New surfaces are edgy and inconsistent with grip. Hopefully we can use the middle of the track and one day use the high line. I know my history at these tracks. It doesn’t guarantee you anything.”
Maybe the bobblehead in victory lane does. Johnson will find out Sunday.