Jimmie Johnson extends points lead with ninth-place finish at Talladega
By SceneDaily Staff
Sunday, October 05, 2008
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TALLADEGA, Ala. – Jimmie Johnson rallied from a lap down and overcame a broken splitter brace on his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet to finish ninth in Sunday’s Amp Energy 500 at Talladega Superspeedway and extend his series points lead.
After dropping to the back because of a prerace engine check by his crew, Johnson remained near the tail end of the field in the opening part of the race, eventually losing a lap to leader David Ragan on lap 25.
It didn’t take Johnson long to get the lap back courtesy of the free pass but his troubles weren’t over. The damage to his car’s splitter brace came after a piece of David Reutimann’s shredded tire hit the front of Johnson’s car. After a pit stop to repair the damage, Johnson quickly moved toward the front. The two-time defending series champion took the lead on lap 76 for one lap and paced the field for two more laps after reassuming the top spot on lap 78.
Then all that was left was to dodge the Big One, which he did – barely.
“We had our fair share of problems today,” Johnson said. “We didn’t have speed in the car like we wanted to. We’ve got to figure out what happened there. It started yesterday with qualifying. We weren’t sure what was going on and today, the car was pretty flat still. I lost the draft at the start of the race because I couldn’t hang on and then from there we got our lap back and dodged wrecks and raced really hard.
“We had great pit calls and all those things. It was a great team effort for all of us today.”
Johnson’s points lead ballooned from 10 to 72 over Roush Fenway Racing’s Carl Edwards and from 30 to 77 over Roush Fenway’s Greg Biffle, who were both involved in a multicar crash on lap 175.
“We just keep racing,” Johnson said of his lead. “And we race smart and we do what we can. I’ve realized in the past that the whole sport falls into a comfort zone and thinks that 60, 80, or 100 points is a big gap. But truly, that can go away in a hurry. So, I’m happy that it is what it is, but I know there is a lot of racing ahead of us.”
- Mentioned Drivers:
- Jimmie Johnson
Comments
1 response to "Jimmie Johnson extends points lead with ninth-place finish at Talladega"
Linda Welsh said:
Oct 6, 2008 at 12:28 PMJimmie and his team are so adept in handling adversity or coming from behind. It might not be in their favor to be ahead. Go 48.
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