Q. Was it boring for you guys?
JIMMIE JOHNSON: For me it may have been more relieving than others because you can finally just ride and log some miles. We can run 497 miles around here, and it doesn’t matter, it’s just that last lap.
Q. How does it affect you as a competitor when you’re told only an hour before you’re going to go 200 miles an hour that you have to do it differently than you’ve done it before?
JIMMIE JOHNSON: The rules change they made didn’t make the racing anymore dangerous at the start of the race. There is nothing there from a fear factor or concern factor.
They tried to take away an opportunity for us to wreck. But I think we all knew it was coming. On Friday they sent some feelers out. In the truck race there were some more opinions floating around of what could and could not take place. I think we all knew about it coming into the race. So we weren’t blind-sided, and it wasn’t something that was going to put us in harm’s way.
good.
Q. The strategy played out good for you. But does the urge to want to move forward take over from wanting to ride for a period of time where you feel like I got to go?
JIMMIE JOHNSON: To be honest with you, the strategies completely backfired. The only thing that saved our butts was Chad’s decision for fuel. We were in big trouble, 25th or something on that red flag. So all the credit goes to Chad and making us come down pit road and put some fuel in that thing. That was really the strategy that did it.
So we could have been running up front, and he could have had that—I don’t think he would have because a lot of guys stayed out. But his whole decision to pit put us in a position to finish well.
Q. At what point with how many laps to go did you realize you know, being back here may not be the best way to be? When did you begin to feel a little bit anxious that you could maybe not get up to the front?
JIMMIE JOHNSON: There are different stages of it. I think last year with 14 to go the guys that were riding decided to run up through there and caused a wreck.
So today I was waiting for that to take place and it didn’t. With about 6 to go, that’s the last time I remember Chad giving me a number of 6 to go. It dawned on me that we were in a bad position. There were three-wide in front of me, nowhere to go, and you’re just stuck. You hope that your lane moves forward a little bit. If it does, you pass four cars, five cars, that’s about it.
Then the inside lane or middle lane comes surging forward. And I knew I was in big trouble then. You could see guys pushing and shoving, and wondering if the big wreck was going to take place, but then I’m like, I can’t be conservative now and try to miss it because if this thing goes green like it looks, we’re in even more trouble then.
So I was asking where the 5 and the 24 were. And it had me really nervous in the closing laps where we were and what was going on and the way our strategy played out.
The strategy backfired like I said earlier, it was all Chad’s decision to pit.
Q. If you could clarify. When did you go in for gas for that final time? And everybody thought they were good on gas, everybody on the radio said we’re good, we’re good. Under a red flag, and this is a question of ignorance, I thought you turned your motors off? How do they run out of gas if they were good before the red flag?
JIMMIE JOHNSON: What was the caution before the red? No, we pitted during the red is what it was. When the caution first came out we came by and the pits were open. We came in and put fuel in the car. Us, the 1, there were a few others that came. So we left pit road, drove through 1 and 2, and they stopped us on the back right away.
At that point when we took off and got going guys left their engines off during that caution and all. But the fact that it took a while, they must have been closer than they thought.
When the 1 car ran out, I think he was stranded, and that brought the caution back out, and we had to go one to go. And we had two or three extra laps at least, and that cut into the amount of fuel these guys had had planned on having for the end.
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