FORT WORTH, Texas – Seven-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) champion Jimmie Johnson hopes for a record eighth title took a major hit during Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 after the Hendrick Motorsports driver was unable to recover from an untimely pitstop and an ill-handling race car.
Johnson’s No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet started the race ninth but quickly faded during Stage 1 as his car was tight in and loose off. He pitted on Lap 55 for four tires and fuel, but 13 laps later he returned to pit road for an unscheduled stop for a tire rub and a vibration.
At the end of Stage 1, Johnson was 28th and ultimately never recovered.
Despite a principled effort from crew chief Chad Knaus, the handling woes never improved and by the end of Stage 2, the defending Texas race winner lost two positions and sat 30th.
Continued efforts would be in vain as Johnson would lose another lap during a green-flag cycle. Johnson motored to a 27th place finish, three laps behind Playoff driver Kevin Harvick.
“We’ve got to figure something out. Kansas was a lot like this,” said Johnson. “It was just extremely difficult to drive the car and carry entry speed. And then we had a loose wheel and then contact on a restart. We started off in a hole and just kept digging a deeper one as we went.
“I’m definitely disappointed. And, I honestly just feel bad for my team. These guys are working so hard. And to work this hard and not see any speed go back in the car and have bad results as the last three weeks have been is pretty disappointing.”
It was also Johnson’s worst finish since a 29th at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International in Aug and 10th time outside the top-20 in 2017.
“We had a really loose car, especially on entry, we just couldn’t get out of it,” added Johnson. “The first pit stop, we had a loose wheel and that got us down further and then on a restart I ran into the back of somebody in the restart zone. It was just a bad day that just kept getting worse.”
Despite a few opportunities for Knaus to take the wave-around, Johnson said he remained silent on the radio as he didn’t want to mess up any potential game plan Knaus was drumming up.
“I saw a few cautions came after,” Johnson said. “The driver usually has such a small vantage point and I didn’t want to say anything and I just didn’t know what was the master plan. It’s easy to look back and to see how quick those cautions came out and I’m sure there was good reason at the time.”
With his worst Texas finish since a 25th in April 2014, Johnson now sits eighth in the Playoff standings and 51 points behind the cutoff position occupied by Brad Keselowski – putting the El Cajon, Calif. native in a likely must-win situation heading to Phoenix (Ariz.) Raceway next weekend.
In 28 starts at Phoenix, the 41-year-old has three poles, four wins, 15 top-five and 20 top-10 finishes at the 1.0-mile oval
Johnson, however, knows duplicating his ninth-place finish from the spring won’t send into the Championship 4 at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway on Nov. 19.
“It’s been a good track for us. But this last half of the year has been really weird,” he said. “In places where we expect to run well and traditionally do, we haven’t. But I know we’re building a better race car and taking a few new ideas to Phoenix and we’ll go there and fight as hard as we can. And that’s one thing this team will never do it give up.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
