Team 48 Lowe’s Motor Speedway Preview

Lowe’s Monte Carlo driver Jimmie Johnson and Team 48 travel to Lowe’s Motor Speedway this weekend where Johnson hopes to become the first driver to win Sunday’s 600-mile race four consecutive times. Johnson will also make his 2006 Busch Series debut Saturday night driving the No. 48 Lowe’s Monte Carlo. Johnson began the week winning the All-Star race for the second time in his career. One of the biggest issues facing the NASCAR Nextel Cup teams this weekend will be the new harder compound tires and the new racing surface. Drivers talked about tire chatter throughout All-Star weekend.

DRIVER JIMMIE JOHNSON QUOTES:

On combination team has at Lowe’s Motor Speedway: "I think there is just a line around the race track that my driving style fits. We keep adjusting to it. We have had so much success here that I just stay set in my ways and work on my line that I need around this race track and we keep adjusting the car to it. Once the sun goes down and the grip is in the race track, we end up working our way to the front. I am not so sure it is the right line and that I drive this place right when the sun is out in the heat of day. But when the checkered flag is around the corner, we always seem to come to life. All I can say it is my driving style and the way I drive this race track, it just works."

On starting to sense this might be the championship season: "I believe so in my heart. I really do. It is no different really than the last two years that I have been out here competing, I just feel like we have always been there and as you all know, we always do so well until August and that is the big challenge for us this year is to make sure we can keep that momentum. We are making every adjustment to our race team through the approach that we have toward the end of the season. We are looking at everything and trying to do everything we can to put together out best 10 races at the end. We will try again as hard as we can this year and hopefully we can do it."

Busch Series: “I am really looking forward to Saturday night. I won a Busch Pole at Darlington and here last year now I want to get a trophy. Hopefully we will have a lot of fun, learn about the track, and bring the Lowe’s car to Victory Lane. We plan to run a few more Busch races this season. I enjoy the Busch Series. If you are a race car driver you enjoy racing anything. The more I can race the happier I am. I finished last here in October so I think I owe this place.”

On tire chattering: "When the car is not handling right, it definitely picks up a chatter. Instead of the tire slipping like it used to, because it is so hard, it chatters now. That is kind of the tire slip that you feel. The way I kind of look at it and at times (during the All-Star race), I did have it when my car was too tight, the front tires would chatter across the race track. It is something we are all paying attention to and trying to understand why because this is the only track where we have such a severe chatter with the tires. The other mile and one half and short track, you rarely, rarely see a chatter unless the car is so tight and you put an absurd amount of steering wheel angle in to it, then it will chatter. But very minimal amount of steering wheel angle here and the tires chatter and that is something we aren't used to. I think that is why most of the drivers have been paying so much attention to it and talking about it. "

Race Notes

Chassis