Banquet 400 presented by ConAgra Foods - Jimmie Johnson Notes

Team 48 Kansas Speedway Preview

Jimmie Johnson and Team 48 race at Kansas Speedway on Sunday for the fourth of the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series’ 10-race “Chase For The Championship.” Johnson’s 37th-place finish Sunday at Talladega dropped him to ninth in the title race. Johnson trails leader Kurt Busch by 159 points.

Jimmie Johnson:

On Kansas Speedway: “I think we should be good. A lot has changed since last year at Kansas. You know, we can't take the same setup over there. Really, partway through this year things changed a lot when NASCAR implemented the rear shock rule. I think we'll look to Chicago and kind of baseline some things from Chicago. We qualified well. I think we ended up running second to (Tony) Stewart over there. I feel like we'll be good. Hopefully we can get the momentum on the upside of things. We definitely need that at this point in the championship. Hopefully Kansas can be that springboard for us.”

Qualifying Importance: “It is important. It guarantees …your pit stall pick works out to where you have an opening. An opening to Martinsville, even Talladega last weekend, is pretty important. In that aspect, it's an advantage. But if you qualify and you take your shot at -- if you qualify, say, 10th, and you just randomly pick a pit stall, and the guys around you have problems and go out, now you have an advantage or now you're even with the guys who qualified well. So it's really hard to say, you know, how important qualifying is. As far as track position, I don't put a lot of weight in that. It is nice, you possibly will avoid a problem, but I don't think there's a lot of weight in that. I think the majority of the weight falls onto the pit road pick.”

Pinpointing Where Other “Chase” Drivers Are On The Track During The Race: “I don't think you're going to be pinpointing anyone until you get down to a race or two to go and you know who you have to beat for your position in points. Calculating out what we need from here on out, that's typically something we don't do. We may hear of a number that maybe the media brings up, "You need 68, whatever it may be, 30 points to close the margin by the end of the season.” There's too many variables in our sport to put a lot of weight in that. We just try to go out and get all we can and take it from there.”

RACE NOTES

CHASSIS INFORMATION - Team Lowe’s Racing will bring car No 4880 to Kansas Speedway this weekend. This car won both Pocono races in 2004 and raced at Las Vegas and California.

STATS & FACTS

2004 Season