Inside the numbers: Johnson's excellence on full display at Dover
If you want to understand exactly how good Jimmie Johnson is at Dover International Speedway, consider some of the numbers the six-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series has posted at the Monster Mile in his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets.
* Johnson's victory Sunday at the 1-mile track was his 10th, putting him among some exclusive company -- Richard Petty, David Pearson, Darrell Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt are the only other drivers to have won at least 10 races at one track, and all are current NASCAR Hall of Fame members, as Johnson surely will be one day.
* Speaking of Earnhardt, Johnson now has 74 Sprint Cup race victories, just two shy of the 76 posted by the late seven-time champion.
* In terms of laps and miles led, Johnson has been out front at Dover for 2,999 laps and the same number of miles. That's greater than the driving distance from New York to San Diego, the latter being the region where Johnson grew up.
* Or how about this? In 13 races at Dover, Johnson has led more than 100 laps. Seven times, he has led more than 200 laps.
But the most impressive factor in Johnson's Sunday victory in the FedEx 400 benefitting Autism Speaks at Dover wasn't that Johnson crushed the field and led wire to wire. He didn't. Not by a long shot.
The most impressive thing about Johnson's latest win is that he did it without having the fastest car. Four drivers -- Martin Truex Jr. (131), Denny Hamlin (118), Kevin Harvick (91) and Brad Keselowski (28) -- all led more laps than Johnson on this day.
In fact, Johnson took his one and only lead of the day with just 23 of 400 laps left, working past reigning series champion and race leader Harvick and then holding through a couple of end-of-race restarts on old tires.
For most of the day, though, Johnson didn't look anything like the guy who was going to win.
Johnson qualified 14th, and after making some encouraging progress early on, got stuck for most of the race.
"Just a tough race today," Johnson said. "We went from 14th to fifth in pretty quick order, and then just the top five cars were so equal that it was just -- you couldn't pass. You really just could not get by somebody. If they made a bobble or a mistake you could close up, but then the next set of corners, they would get back to the bottom and run a line and kind of hold you up and you couldn't go anywhere."
And that meant strategy and pit stops would play key roles in the outcome of the race, just as they did when Denny Hamlin won the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race two weeks ago in Charlotte.
"I really felt like it was going to be a game of inches today, and as the race progressed, my team did a great job on pit road and got me a couple spots and then I'd lose them on a restart being pinned down on the inside," said Johnson.
"And I felt bad for my guys that I couldn't do anything with their awesome pit stops, but when it came to green flag stops, they once again nailed the stops and we were able to leapfrog some guys on the racetrack," said Johnson. "And then that really set up our race at the end, and I was able to finally get to the 4 (second-place finisher Harvick) with 25 (laps) to go, get kind of close to them."
As for the 10th race victory at Dover, neither Johnson nor his crew chief Chad Knaus made a big deal out of it. They just went about their business.
"I didn't realize that they were going for 10 wins until we showed up here," Knaus said. "I don't remember anybody even saying anything about it last year in the fall, so it was kind of a shock to me. I didn't really touch on that."
"I'm almost in shock that we're there," said Johnson, "I mean, 74 race wins, 10 here, I mean, you can't dream that big. I'm just blown away and honored by the success -- what we've done with our opportunity and honored to have a shot at history with Dale and then the 10 wins here."
