Golden Corral 500 - Jimmie Johnson Notes

JIMMIE JOHNSON
NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO
ATLANTA PREVIEW

Lowe’s driver Jimmie Johnson and Team 48 travel to Atlanta Motor Speedway this weekend for Sunday’s 500-mile NASCAR NEXTEL Cup race. Jimmie finished third at the October Atlanta race. Last Sunday at Las Vegas, Johnson started 12th and moved into the lead by lap 37 before a pit road incident damaged the right front fender and hurt his chances for victory. Johnson finished 16th and moved up six places to 19th in the season point standings.

Q&A’s WITH JIMMIE JOHNSON

WILL YOU GO TO ATLANTA WITH BASICALLY THE SAME SET-UP YOU HAD LAST YEAR?
“Things are a lot differences with the spoiler change and the tires. We’ll take a look at our Las Vegas race notes from ’03 and compare them to ’04 and try to mark some similarities and make some changes to the set-ups for Atlanta. It’s a whole new game. It’s still a race car and we still have the same factors we’re trying to deal with, but there’s definitely a new configuration that’s needed.”

ON MOVING UP TO 19TH IN THE POINTS
“I still wish we could have banked a few points and be solidly in the top 10, but it’s racing and it’s a long season. It’s early yet. We could still move up or down depending on how luck treats us. Hopefully we’ll be moving forward.”

CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE FEELING OF SPEED AT ATLANTA?
“Yeah, it is from the driver’s seat. In qualifying, you won’t even come out of the gas all the way. You might breathe it a little bit in Turns 1 and 2 to maybe half-throttle, and then you’re right back to wide open. To have a good lap – meaning a top five or top 10 – you’ll be wide open through Turns 3 and 4. So it’s a lot different from anywhere else we run. At Texas, even though it’s flat, you still have a lot of grip and you can charge it pretty hard. But Atlanta is by far the fastest in race trim and in qualifying just because you don’t really have to get off the gas if the car’s handling right.”

IS IT FRUSTRATING TO SEE EVERYTHING GOING RIGHT FOR MATT KENSETH?
“No, not really. You want that to be you and your team, but you know somebody’s going to have that. So I guess there is maybe some frustration because you want it to be your team. You know somebody is going to have that type of luck because it’s too competitive. There are too many good teams out there. We’re really early into the season and we’ve got lots of time to make it up. The way the points are playing out at the end of the year, you just need to be within 400 points (of the leader). A 16th place finish at Las Vegas is not the end of the world. A DNF? That hurts. So as long as we don’t have any more DNF’s and we improve, we’ll be in great shape. We’ve got the speed on pit road and on the race track and on everything in between. We’ll be able to make it up.”

Q&A’s WITH CREW CHIEF CHAD KNAUS:

WILL ATLANTA BE A TRUE TEST FOR THE NEW TIRE AND IF SO, HOW WILL THAT HELP WITH YOUR DECISIONS ON RACE DAY?
“They’ve been saying that every week. This will be the true test for the tires. But the test was when we started at Daytona. The tire was different there. We’ve been battling the tire situation ever since then and it hasn’t gotten a whole lot easier. Tire management is obviously a factor. Las Vegas was a great test for the tires. I think it showed that the cars that had the most downforce at the end of the run and the most horsepower at the end of the run and the best handling car at the end of the run were the better cars, plain and simple. There were some guys who could get out there early on while the tires were fresh. You could have some speed in the car and you could generate some downforce and you could use the motor that you had and you we’re okay. You could run with everybody else. But as the grip went away, and the car slowed down and you lost downforce and you weren’t able to put all the throttle to the floor, the ones that could accelerate and recover better and the ones that had the most downforce could corner better were the faster cars.”

CAN YOU COMPARE THE FOUR 1.5-MILE TRACKS YOU RUN BETWEEN NOW AND MAY?
“Atlanta is rough and kind of coarse. It’s a little bumpy. It’s pretty scary for the drivers to drive at times. Texas is just plain old fast. That’s all there is to it. It’s just a fast, silly-fast place to go. It’s smooth. You have very low shock velocities. It’s a quick race track and an awesome facility. Fontana is a long, wide, and flat track. It’s a neat race track. Where Atlanta and Texas are real high-banked and aggressive, Fontana is more of a rhythm race-track. It has a lot to do with the way you get on and off the throttle as to how the car is going to handle. Lowe’s Motor Speedway is home base for us, and a track that I love. But that is an evil place. It’s nothing but bumps and bruises and cracks in the pavement. Your tires are going to fall off. But you go to some of these places with a smaller spoiler and softer tire, and you’re going to fly in qualifying. It’s going to be pretty exciting.”

RACE NOTES

CHASSIS INFORMATION
Team Lowe’s Racing will bring car 4859 which is the second oldest in the Team 48 fleet. The team did not test at Atlanta this season.

STATS & FACTS

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