NASCAR Rocks

Jimmy Johnson proved he’s still the ultimate Nascar daredevil when he hit the dirt here in Fort Worth. So flamboyant was Johnson that team owner Rick Hendrick almost pulled him off the track.

Hendrick watched in horror as one of his leading Nextel Cup championship contenders duelled with Matt Kenseth over the final laps Sunday night, slipping and sliding around Texas Motor Speedway on two new tires. He knew his other driver in the title chase, Jeff Gordon, had a seventh-place finish secured. But the problem was with Johnson, who raced with the recklessness of a teenager.

“I was thinking, ‘We’ve got an awful lot at stake here, and Jeff was running seventh, and we don’t need this,’” the NASCAR team owner said. “But I felt like Jimmie was under control. I was nervous and wanting to hit the button. I was thinking it.”
Johnson himself was upbeat about the contest, in which he finally emerged victorious, and to the relief of Hendrick, unscarred.

“It came down to a full-blown brawl with Matt, in a good way,” Johnson said. “I don’t mean that in a bad way. We both wanted that win really bad, and I think it was evident in how close the racecars were. It was a lot of fun. I knew I didn’t have to worry about him putting me in a bad position because of the championship, and he also knew I wouldn’t come in there and clean him out and take out both of us racing for a shot at the win. So it was really good racing.”

Kenseth too was buzzed with the adrenaline pumping duel. Even though he finished second, he felt it was a worthy contest, and he showed respect to Johnson.

“I think the only time that would change is if he was at [the season finale in] Homestead and had a 50-point lead or something like that,” Kenseth said. “Maybe he would have backed out of it and pulled behind me. We’ve raced together for a long time, and I think he was pretty confident that I wasn’t going to wreck him. We raced each other really hard. I didn’t give him extra room at all, and I thought of the points thing and thought maybe he would back out of it. At one point he backed out of it with five to go, but he was just a lot faster.”

Filed under: Cars, Points Chase, Racing