Jimmie Johnson considers Tony Stewart one of season's biggest surprises
Hendrick Motorsports' Jimmie Johnson is 13th in the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings. // David Griffin, NASCAR Scene
BRISTOL, Tenn. – When Jimmie Johnson reflects on the first four races of the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup season, he’s a little surprised by some drivers’ early success and others’ lack of it.
Johnson has been particularly surprised by the effort of the No. 14 team of Stewart-Haas Racing co-owner/driver Tony Stewart. Stewart spent his first 10 Cup seasons at Joe Gibbs Racing, where he won 33 races and two championships. He assumed the reins of an organization that prior to this year struggled just to field competitive cars.
But thanks to a trio of eighth-place finishes, Stewart is sixth in the standings and appears to have a legitimate shot at making the 12-driver field that will take part in the Chase For The Sprint Cup to decide this year’s champion.
“I think that the Stewart-Haas organization and what Tony’s been able to do, that is extremely impressive and shocking to me to be where they’re at,” Johnson said. “A lot has taken place in a short period of time for those guys, and [I’m] certainly happy for Tony. As we all know, he’s off on a small branch right now, and he’s doing a great job with it.”
Another competitor the three-time defending series champion has taken particular notice of is Penske Racing’s Kurt Busch, who is third in the series standings and has three top-10s, including a win. Busch, who claimed the series title in 2004 while driving for the team now known as Roush Fenway Racing, failed to make NASCAR’s Chase For The Sprint Cup last season and wasn’t a factor for the win in the majority of races.
“I think we saw him coming on towards the end of last year, and I think it’s great to see [team owner] Roger [Penske’s] team winning races and running up front,” Johnson said on Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway, site of Sunday’s Food City 500. “When he was in a Roush car, every time that 97 [car of Busch] pulled on track, you knew you were going to have your hands full. They’re not necessarily a surprise. I think I saw it coming; I’m not sure if anyone else did, but I saw it coming.”
On the flipside, Johnson expected Roush Fenway’s Carl Edwards and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch to be a little stronger out of the box.
Edwards, last season’s undisputed king of the 1.5- and 2-mile tracks that make up the majority of the Cup schedule, has one top-five in three starts at such venues this season. Busch, despite winning the season’s third race at Las Vegas, struggled in the most recent event – the March 8 Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta - where he was the defending race winner.
“I expected the 99 [of Edwards] on the mile-and-a-half tracks to be a little faster and probably the 18 [of Kyle Busch] for that matter,” Johnson said. “Even though he did win at Las Vegas, I just kind of expected to see those guys up there a little bit more and ourself, for that matter. I mean, I can’t leave myself out of it.”
Johnson, after all, has a season-best finish only of ninth and is 13th in points – not exactly up to par by his standards.
“We’ve led some laps, but I’ve made mistakes, we’ve had some bad pit stops, strategy stuff’s gone on, and we just need to clean up our act and put together a good race start to finish and get the finish we should,” Johnson said.
