Jimmie Johnson doesn’t like being a Winston Cup rookie. But he’s not letting that stand in his way as he pursues a series championship.
In the MBNA All-American Heroes 400 at Dover International Speedway on Sunday, Johnson belied his lack of seasoning as he and his No. 48 Chevrolet held off Mark Martin’s Ford to win his third race of the season, tying Tony Stewart’s rookie record.
He also become the eighth driver to sweep the two races at this track in a single season.
And yet Johnson said he’d trade his youth for a little more experience.
“In a heartbeat,” he said. “I have had a great year, and I have all the things necessary to win races and championships. But experience is what matters on the racetrack so much. I’d gladly give up some years for some experience.”
Still, Johnson has gained experience this year. He learned early not to overrace on new tires, and when Dale Earnhardt Jr. was dominating Sunday’s race over the first 150 one-mile laps, Johnson backed off, biding his time.
“I just didn’t want to wear out the front right,” he said. “I realized we were running like we were in qualifying [very fast] mode, and I just decided to wait and see where things were after 300 laps and go from there.”
By the end of the day, it was dominating performance. Johnson led a race-high 170 laps, including the last 80, as he averaged 120.805 m.p.h. and held off Martin at the finish line by .535 of a second.
“We could get to him, but we’d lose the front end when we got behind him,” Martin said. “I put us in a pitiful hole with a dumb qualifying effort Saturday (32nd), and today it took us the whole race to catch up.”
Coming into this race, Martin held a slim six-point lead over Sterling Marlin in the driver standings. Martin stretched the lead to 30 on Sunday, while Johnson moved into second placeand Marlin struggled to a 21st-place finish and dropped to fourth.
“That’s all we could do,” Marlin said of the performance in his Dodge. “We had the wrong gear, the wrong springs, the wrong shocks, the wrong car.”
Stewart finished fifth and moved into third place. Jeff Gordon remained fifth but fell 190 points back. He got caught up in a crash on the 67th lap and finished 37th.
