CUP: JJ Lights Up Daytona

Sprint Cup

CUP: JJ Lights Up Daytona

Under a cold, clear Central Florida sky, Jimmie Johnson blistered the 2.5-mile Daytona International Speedway Friday night with a lap of 192.620 miles per hour...

Tom Jensen | Posted February 06, 2009 Daytona Beach, FL

Jimmie Johnson, driver of the No. 48 Lowe's Chevrolet drives during practice for the Budweiser Shootout at Daytona. (Photo by John Harrelson/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Jimmie Johnson served notice Friday night that he’s not about to simply hand over the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship that he’s held since 2006. At least without putting up one whale of a fight.

Under a cold, clear Central Florida sky, Johnson blistered the 2.5-mile Daytona International Speedway Friday night with a lap of 192.620 miles per hour in his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. That was good enough to be fastest of the 28 cars participating in the second and final practice round for the Budweiser Shootout.

Johnson insisted he and his Hendrick squad are still supremely motivated even after three titles, and his speed at the 2.5-mile superspeedway showed the team is ready to go.

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“Every team meeting we’ve had and everything we’ve talked about is winning races and winning a championship,” said Johnson, who is seeking to be the first driver in history to win four consecutive Sprint Cup championships. “It’s not winning the 41st race or winning the fourth championship. … We just like doing what we do and we want to win and we want to be as good as we can be. No one is really satisfied. We still have that hunger to go out and do our jobs and be the best in our sport.”

Behind Johnson in the one-hour final session were the Richard Petty Motorsports Dodge Charger of AJ Allmendinger at 192.542 mph and defending Shootout winner Dale Earnhardt Jr., who ran 192.304 mph in his Hendrick Chevy. Kasey Kahne’s RPM Dodge was fourth at 191.910 mph, followed by Tony Stewart’s 191.800 mph in his Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet.

Less than three minutes into the session, Jeff Burton’s Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet lost an engine, forcing him to miss the remainder of the session.

“I’m proud of my guys,” said Burton. “You know, you come to this race full-tilt, not worrying about reliability. And that’s what our guys are doing, they’re putting 100 percent effort into winning races and doing everything we can to go fast this year. I don’t care if we blew up. The only thing I hate about it is we missed some practice. I’m proud of them for going full tilt and making something happen.”

While exiting Turn 2 later in the session, Kahne grazed the wall lightly in his Dodge, but didn’t appear to suffer any serious damage.

About 45 minutes into the session, Paul Menard lost a right-rear tire in Turn 1 and his Yates Racing Ford was tapped by Scott Speed’s Red Bull Racing Toyota, with both cars suffering minor damage. “It was definitely good we got most of practice in,” said Speed. “And it’s good we got my first wreck under my belt here at Daytona and I came out and was OK. So it was a good thing.”

Speed said he thought his car was repairable, and he wouldn’t be forced to a backup for Saturday’s race.

“I don’t know if we ran over something or the tire just went down,” said Menard.

Kyle Busch also suffered some damage on the right rear of his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota when he checked up and got tagged by Reed Sorenson.

BUDWEISER SHOOTOUT PRACTICE2 RESULTS

SPEED will offer 100 Hours of High Definiton coverage from Daytona. CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL SCHEDULE FROM DAYTONA

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tom Jensen

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