General Jimmie: Johnson trades No. 48 car for World War II tank
Despite winning six Sprint Cup Series championships and more races than the overwhelming majority of his NASCAR competitors, Jimmie Johnson has driven a few ill-handling race cars over the years.
On more than occasion, Johnson, in the heat of battle, recalls referring to a particularly uncooperative car as a "dump truck" or even "a tank."
Earlier this week at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Johnson quite literally traded his familiar No. 48 Chevrolet for a tank - this one used in the famous Battle of the Bulge in World War II.
Johnson, on hand to help the speedway promote its "Let the Troops Race" program along with next month's Bank of America 500, drove the Army tank over two cars emblazoned with the car numbers of several of his fellow drivers in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
For Johnson, the all-time wins leader at Charlotte, this was taking his penchant for "crushing" the competition to a whole new level.
It's fair to say the Hendrick Motorsports driver enjoyed his ride in the 75,000-pound battle-tested beast.
"It's loud inside, so I had to shut it down in order to kind of get the lay of the land and how to start the thing and drive it and all that," Johnson said. "Fortunately, my years of riding on tractors with my dad came into play, and it drove just the same as a bulldozer or something like that."
Clearly amused, Johnson couldn't help but compare a real tank with a race car that handles like one.
"I'm going to drop the, 'It's turning like a dump truck' analogy and say, 'It's turning like a tank.' And I've used that, I think, a few times over my career, so it's cool to be in it," Johnson said. "My grandfather spent a lot of time, I believe, in one of these tanks - I know he was in a tank in World War II. I'll have to ask my dad to find out if it was the same one, but it's wild thinking about a two- or three-man crew riding around in one of those things finding bad guys."
So after his experience at the controls of a World War II tank, is the reigning Sprint Cup Series champion ready to dig deep into his pockets and buy one of his own?
"No, I'm pretty good," Johnson said with a laugh. "I've got enough stuff. I've got some old cars that are pretty big and heavy that drive 'tankish,' so I'm good."
