Against anybody but Dale Earnhardt Jr., there’s no way Jimmie Johnson would be “the other guy” in a duel for the Nextel Cup championship.
California cool, colorful, polished, mentored and backed by four-time champion Jeff Gordon–and above all, dazzlingly all-out in his driving style–Johnson, 28, would be the star under any other circumstances.
As it is, during driver introductions at every race, he looks up at the grandstands and beholds overwhelming red–jackets, caps and T-shirts proclaiming fanatical loyalty to Earnhardt.
“Would I like to be the guy looking up and seeing blue everywhere? Sure,” Johnson says.
“But it’s not that way. You see a sea of red, and it’s my job to go out and win races and show them by performance that this 48 team and Jimmie Johnson are something to cheer for.”
One guy to whom Johnson has nothing to prove is Earnhardt. The two are neck-and-neck in the points standings, with Johnson 27 ahead going into Sunday’s Tropicana 400 at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet. Each has three wins this season. Only Gordon has more, four.
“They’re a team that in my opinion has the potential to be as dominant as Jeff was over the years that he was so dominant,” Earnhardt says in what amounts to a towering forecast.
From 1996-98, Gordon stormed to season victory totals of 10, 10 and 13. Nobody since has come close to that sort of dominance.
If Earnhardt’s foresight is correct, his sea of red in the stands could be challenged by Johnson blue. But for now, Earnhardt keeps building, with his own accomplishments, on the instant name recognition and guidance he got from his late father.
Johnson had little name recognition until Gordon and team owner Rick Hendrick plucked him from a crowd of Busch series wannabes and launched him toward stardom in 2002. He had come up differently than Earnhardt, who graduated through traditional Southern oval-track racing.
Racing for Johnson’s Southern California family was all about fun, not about ambition for the big time. And it was mostly the motocross and off-road racing.
“It has been an amazing ride,” Johnson says of his rise. “I’ve realized now all the sacrifices my family made just to let my brothers and me go have fun. My dad wasn’t gambling on his children succeeding. He did it solely because it was fun, and he wanted his kids to have a good time, and he loved his family.
“I’m so appreciative of everything he sacrificed and all the money he spent to take my brothers and me all over the country racing. Our house wasn’t the nicest house and we didn’t have the nicest cars, but we had the cool new motorcycles and toys to ride and learn on.”
Johnson’s younger brothers still race for fun, around their new North Carolina home. Jarit, 25, races late model stock cars. Jessie, 15, races a kit-car formula on the short track inside Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
Gary Johnson never even dreamed his eldest son would reach other-guy status in Nextel Cup.
“I’m still pinching myself at these races–just amazed we’re here,” the elder Johnson says. “We took a very odd road, coming from motorcycles, racing jet skis, racing off-road, and then when Jimmie got into ASA [the American Speed Association, a top grooming league for NASCAR] his stock-car skills got really good enough for him to come here. There was no way you could have ever planned our road.”
Johnson leapt from ASA rookie of the year honors in 1998 to part-time and then full-time Busch rides. That’s where master talent scout Hendrick spotted his ability–and just as importantly, for sponsorship’s sake, his polish and aplomb–and Gordon agreed to become driving coach and financial partner in a new branch of the Hendrick Cup team designed especially for Johnson.
Johnson responded with a Daytona 500 pole right out of the box, won three races in 2002 and stayed in the championship points battle past the midway point of the season. Last year he finished second to Cup winner Matt Kenseth in the standings.
Being under the same roof with Gordon’s No. 24 team at the Hendrick complex in Concord, N.C., has meant seasoning by osmosis.
“We’ve had as a model the 24 team, because our two teams work together, side by side,” Johnson says.
“So from the first day of our team being built, we’ve had that championship mindset. I think that’s rare. We didn’t have to learn it or develop it. We have that presence around us.
“So from our first race, we’ve had championship on the brain.”
Like Earnhardt, Johnson doesn’t particularly like the new system for determining a champion. This year, for the first time, after 26 races the top 10 drivers–plus any other driver who’s within 400 points of the leader–will be bunched up mathematically, with only a five-point differential between each position, or 50 points between first place and 10th. Then they will have a “championship chase” for the final 10 races.
“This new point system is for entertainment,” Johnson says. “It’s TV based, not competition based.
“I don’t think it’s fair if Dale Jr. has a 300-point lead after race 26, and then goes into race 27 with only a five-point lead. The same goes for me if I have a 300-point lead going in. It isn’t fair to me to have that washed away and start over with a five-point separation, and anyone who’s within 400 points [after the first 26 races] now has a shot at the championship.”
But, Johnson hopes, “It may work out, and a good car will always rise to the occasion.”
That’s what Earnhardt is afraid of, from Johnson and his crew chief, Chad Knaus.
Technology has become so sophisticated that “a change in the right-rear can do 45 different things, depending on where you are,” Earnhardt says. “It takes a guy who can remember all that and make the right changes, and that’s where Chad’s very smart, knowing what he needs under his car for whatever track he’s dealing with.
“That makes their cars fast. And Jimmie can drive them.”
