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CUP: Johnson Wrecked At Texas
Written by: Tom Jensen   
11/08/2009
Fort Worth, TX
 
RELATED ARTICLE: PHOTOS: Jimmie Johnson Lap 3 Wreck At Texas Motor Speedway

NASCAR Sprint Cup points leader Jimmie Johnson, seemingly a lock for his third consecutive championship, had his worst nightmare come true at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday: A heavy crash in the opening laps of the Dickies 500.
NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship point leader Jimmie Johnson suffered a heavy crash on Lap 3 of the Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR) ยป More Photos

Johnson was in Turn 2 on the third lap of the race, when David Reutimann tapped Sam Hornish Jr. lightly from behind. Hornish drifted up the hill and hit Johnson, which sent the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet into the outside wall, rear-end first.

From there, Johnson’s car went back across the track where he hit Hornish and then went nose-first into the wall. Johnson’s car was severely damaged, and he went straight to the garage for an entirely new front end — both sheetmetal and suspension — driveshaft and a new rear-end housing, among the myriad repairs.

Crewmen from other Hendrick cars joined Johnson’s team in rebuilding the heavily damaged No. 48 Chevrolet Impala SS.

Finally, after one hour and eight minutes in the garage, Johnson rejoined the fray on Lap 115 in 43rd place. After one lap, Johnson pitted with a left-front tire rub. His crew adjusted on it and he soon was back on track. More importantly, he was able to log enough laps to pass three of the start-and-park drivers, moving to 40th place by Lap 140.

Johnson eventually finished 38th, his points lead reduced to 73 over teammate Mark Martin and 112 over Jeff Gordon.

It was Johnson’s worst finish of the season, his first non-top-15 finish in a Chase for the Sprint Cup race since 2006, and his first finish outside the top 10 in the eight Chase races this season. And as he has repeatedly warned people who had anointed him champion, it was proof positive that this year’s Sprint Cup title is still up for grabs.

“As we saw today, anything can happen,” said Johnson after the race.
“It still is ouch. It's not as bad as it could have been. We could have been 43rd. At one point Chad told me to hop out of the car, it was done, we're going to have to put it on the truck. They were able to get it fixed. Mark didn't win. There were a couple small things that helped us in the end. It's still a big ouch.”

Although he was clearly frustrated, Johnson was at least able to laugh a little at his own misfortune afterwards. “We're still in a great position. Like I said, we'll dust ourselves off,” he said. “There's really not much we can do, reflect back on this, say it was a bad car, a bad pit stop or something I did wrong. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Wrong place at the right time, depends where you want the points to go. So it was just one of those things. We'll go to Phoenix.”

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel

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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