Allstate 400 at the Brickyard - Jimmie Johnson Notes

Team 48 Indianapolis Preview

Jimmie Johnson and Team 48 race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday in the 21st race of the 2005 NASCAR Nextel Cup season. Johnson leads the 2005 points race by 66 points over Tony Stewart. There are six races remaining before the “Chase for the Championship.” Only the top 10 drivers and those drivers within 400 points of the leader are eligible for the “Chase.”

JIMMIE JOHNSON:

WAS POCONO A GOOD WARM-UP FOR INDY? “I guess the tunnel turn at Pocono is like the turns you have at Indy. Usually whoever runs well at Pocono runs well at Indy. We haven’t had that similar luck. They’re flat tracks with a lot of speed. The balance and the set-ups are relatively close.”

HOW DOES THE IMPOUND RULE AFFECT YOUR RACE WEEKEND? “The impound rule is better suited for the plate races. We can really save a lot of money for the race teams if the impound rule takes place at the Daytona 500 and all the plate races. We had it for the Pepsi 400 and it was great. It saved a lot of money. On the intermediate tracks, I have a split decision. We’re still there as long as we were with the old procedure. With the impound rule, we really don’t have much to do. We have a little bit of practice on Friday and we make two laps on Saturday and then we race Sunday. There is nothing going on and we’re still spending money for hotel rooms and per diems for the crew guys. The expenses are still there. Granted, we’re not going through extra sets of tires, but in the scheme of things, it’s not that much. If we did continue to have the impound rule, I’d like to see a day knocked off of the schedule. Or, on the intermediate tracks, go back to the old schedule and let us work on our race cars.

HAVING BEEN THROUGH THE CHASE FORMAT ONCE BEFORE, IS THERE ANYTHING DIFFERENT ABOUT YOUR APPROACH THIS YEAR? “You just get what you can every week. We tried that last year and things didn’t work out for us. We hit a slow spot in the season a little bit before the final 10 started and right as it started. Hopefully our slow spots are behind us and we can just keep going and keep finishing in the top five and win a couple more races and be the champion at the end of the year.

“I am a little smarter about it this year with the experience from last year, but so is everybody else. All the teams are capable of putting together 10 good races. So it’s going to be an entirely different points championship or points race once you re-rack everything and group everybody up. It’s going to be intense like last year.”

CREW CHIEF CHAD KNAUS

WHAT IT WOULD MEAN TO WIN INDIANAPOLIS AS A CREW CHIEF? “I’m probably the oddest one out there when it comes to Indy. It’s a great race. It’s very cool. There is a lot of tradition there. It’s neat to go there. But I really like Darlington and Charlotte and tracks like that better. But I’d really love to win at Indianapolis. We’re not going up there to test this year. We’ve been up there the past three years testing and it hasn’t provided a lot of fruits. So we’re going to try a different approach this year. I’d like to win and go through all the stuff of kissing the bricks and all that stuff and roll on.”

RACE NOTES

Chassis