Q: Charlotte and Martinsville are good tracks for you. Is there a place you want to be after Martinsville, going into Talladega?
Jimmie Johnson: “I’m really trying not to look too far ahead and to pay attention to some goal because I just don’t know what’s going to happen. And I don’t want to get emotionally attached to different aspects of different races. If I’m running fifth at Martinsville at a track I feel I should win at, I don’t want to beat myself down or create any issues within the team that I’m leading the race. So, I just need to get all I can and that’s really what I hope to do over the next six weeks. But it would be so nice to have a cushion, whoever the leader is, have a cushion going into Talladega and you can try to race a smart race at that point.”
Q: Can you explain a Cop Stop?
Jimmie Johnson: “I don’t know if it’s a coined phrase or not, but at home we’d call it a ‘Cop Stop’. You’d go into reverse, and then whip the steering wheel and spin the nose around and then pull it into drive and drive off. At Fontana last week, I was messing around with another version of that I learned at the Bondurant School where you’d do a 180-in, slide and turn around backwards and roll backwards and then spin back around and carry out in first gear and put it in drive and take-off. That’s what I was doing on the back stretch and having some fun with last week.”
Q: You’ve never taken the point lead for the first time this late in the season. Have you guys figured out how to peak and not want to be in the point lead in the first part of the season?
Jimmie Johnson: “Man, it’s truthfully not by design. The stats show it and I live it and know that the summer is tough on us in most cases. I felt, at points this year, we were really focused on the No. 14 (Tony Stewart) car leading the points and we need to go up there and get the lead and lead the points and all the effort was there. I do feel like during the summer there were a bunch that got away.”
“I feel we could have had another three or four wins and circumstances just turned out to where we didn’t take advantage of is. In some cases we ran out of gas and finished in the thirties. I can see where big chunks of the points went away where we didn’t have that chance to get up there and fight for the lead in mid-season or earlier in the season. But I wish that we would have. I want to lead the thing from start to finish, you know, and just dominate the whole season. But we’re leading it now and I’ll take it. Really, I wouldn’t care if we didn’t lead until the last lap at Homestead if we get the big trophy (laughs) because that’s what it’s all about.”
| 
|