CUP: Johnson A Strong Second At Daytona

Sprint Cup

CUP: Johnson A Strong Second At Daytona

Jimmie Johnson finished second in Saturday night’s Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway...

Tom Jensen | Posted July 05, 2009 Daytona Beach, FL

The No. 48 team is in championship form again, and Jimmie Johnson was particularly encouraged by his finish under the lights at Daytona. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Don’t look now, but Jimmie Johnson is on a roll as he prepares for a run at a fourth NASCAR Sprint Cup championship.

Johnson and his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet Impala SS finished second behind Tony Stewart in Saturday night’s Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway, sustaining his recent hot streak. In his last eight races, the El Cajon, Calif., native has one victory, two runner-up finishes, four top-five and six top-10 finishes.

During that stretch, the only two times Johnson finished outside the top 10 were a 13th in the rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600, where he got bitten by pit strategy, and a 22nd at Michigan International Speedway. At MIS, Johnson led 146 of 200 laps, only to run out of gas on the last lap.

Clearly, the No. 48 team is in championship form again, and Johnson was particularly encouraged by his finish under the lights at Daytona, where he has struggled with the new-generation Sprint Cup car, formerly known as the Car of Tomorrow.

“It was a great race car,” said Johnson, who in his three Daytona starts had finished 31st, 23rd and 27th. “We haven’t been this strong in Daytona in a long time and I am really proud of the hard work my team has put in this chassis and the guys did a great job of setting this car up and I am very impressed with this.”

What was especially good for Johnson was that the team greatly improved the car over the course of the weekend, something that’s often difficult to do with the COT.

“We have really struggled with the COT at Daytona, the 48 car,” said Johnson. “My teammates have done well at times. But very proud of the hard work Chad (Knaus, crew chief) put into some setups. We started practice a couple days ago and were terrible, and he had two or three different packages to try, and finally the last package we put under it really worked well for us and got me a good driving car, so we're happy.”

As for the violent last-lap crash triggered when Kyle Busch made contact with race-winner Stewart, Johnson said it was simply a racing deal, as was the Carl Edwards-Brad Keselowski last-lap crash at Talladega Superspeedway in April.

“The guys are racing,” Johnson said. “Tony didn't mean to dump him. Same thing with Talladega. It's just the product of restrictor plate racing. Every time we use the restrictor plate tracks there's questions about how we can keep from having the big wreck and things like that, and you just can't. When you run plates and we run wide open all the way around the track, situations like this come around.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED,” and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to

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