If Jimmie Johnson were unstoppable, there’d really be no reason for anyone to show up at the track over the final five races in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
“I’ve been looking forward to this race in the Chase for a long time, and I’m hoping to get out of here with some good points and go on to the next one.”
For many drivers, the treachery of Martinsville makes the race a crapshoot. Because it’s a short track, the carnage is generally contained to two or three victims as opposed to the “big ones” that occur on higher-speed tracks like Talladega. Given Johnson’s track record, he sees Martinsville as a place where he can extend his lead over the Roush Fenway duo of Greg Biffle and Carl Edwards, who are currently third and fourth, respectively, in the points standings.
“The Chase fits me well, the tracks that are in it,” Johnson said. “If we had Bristol, if we had Sonoma, or if we had some of these other tracks in it, even (Indianapolis), even though we’ve won there twice, it’s been a victory or a wreck. So it would change that a lot. Ideally, any driver would love to sit down and mark out their best 10 races and I’m very fortunate in the Chase with the ones that are in the final 10. I’d probably choose seven or eight of them if I had my wish list of tracks to pick.
“I don’t understand why, at the end of the year, we win a fair amount of races. I’ve always thought that these have been good tracks for us and in the spring we’ll run well at them and in the fall we’ll do a little better job and have a winning car at the point. Or sometimes we’ll win in the spring and also in the fall. I really don’t know what it is. We do not try any harder for these races than we do for the ones at the start of the season. This year, we just didn’t have our act together at the start of the season and we’ve done a good job of catching up. But it’s still the same amount of work and the same effort and thought process that goes into it. I don’t know why the results show that.”
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