Subway Fresh 500 - Jimmie Johnson Notes

Team 48 Phoenix Preview

Jimmie Johnson and Team 48 race at Phoenix International Raceway on Saturday night in the eighth race of the 2005 NASCAR Nextel Cup season. Johnson holds a 135-point lead in the 2005 NASCAR Nextel Cup points race. This is the first night Nextel Cup night race at PIR.

JIMMIE JOHNSON:

DO YOU LIKE RACES THAT START IN THE DAYTIME AND END AT NIGHT LIKE YOU WILL HAVE SATURDAY AT PHOENIX? “I do like that format but there are reasons I don’t like it too. The reason I like it is because of the changing track surface. I think that that the more difficult you make it for the drivers and the teams, the better. You have to have those challenges. I love going to Lowe’s Motors Speedway where you start in the day and go into night for the 600 and the track changes so much you have to be on top of things to do your job. So I really love that. But as far as the sun, especially at Phoenix going into turn one, that is the hardest time to see. And it is going to be really really tough to start that race and to know where you are relative to other cars going into turn one at Phoenix, that is going to be a pretty tough challenge.”

WILL THE SUN BE THE TOUGHEST CHALLENGE SATURDAY? “I think so. They are in different categories. I have to say when we raced at Fontana last year, I had to have my spotter spot in front of me going into turn three because the sun was so bright, I couldn’t see the cars in front of me. That is the first time I have ever had to have someone tell me where cars were in front of me and that is just not a safe situation.”

ARE PHOENIX RACES THE WARMEST FOR A DRIVER? “I think with the dry heat there and the time of the year we are typically there, it is not too bad. I would say the Indy race and some of those summer ones in the Midwest and in the South with all the humidity - those are really tough. Indy usually every year is probably the hottest race we have.”

CREW CHIEF CHAD KNAUS:

IS A DAY- NIGHT RACE MORE CHALLENGING FOR THE CREW CHIEF? “Yes, it definitely takes a lot of forethought. NASCAR really is pretty tight on the amount of adjustments you can do on a racecar to keep the car within the boundaries of being legal. It makes it very difficult. You have to be creative with the shocks. You have to be very creative with the spring rubbers. You have to be real thoughtful of the amount of rounds of adjustment you do in the back to make sure you stay within the box they provide. It is real difficult. Tracks change a lot, some more than others. It is really dependant upon where you are at, the time of the year and the way the race is going.”

PHOENIX CHALLENGES: “I know the biggest problem we are going to have is Jimmie being able to see. The sun out there is just awful and I know we are going to have a heck of a time just trying to keep the sun out of the car so Jimmie can actually see getting in to the corner. We have had problems with that running in the day just into the early evening, I can’t imagine what it is going to be like when the sun is actually trying to set.”

RACE NOTES

Chassis –. Team Lowe’s racing will bring car 48272 to Phoenix as the primary and car 48264 as the backup. The primary raced at Phoenix last year finishing sixth. It also ran at the first Loudon race where it finished 11th.

STATS & FACTS

Career