Subscibe to our feedJohnson Finishes 3rd in Bristol
BRISTOL, Tenn. – Jimmie Johnson was looking for two things during Sunday’s Sprint Cup race at Bristol Motor Speedway: a solid finish and a jump in the driver point standings.
Mission accomplished.
Driving the No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet Impala SS, Johnson led two times for 88 laps on the way to a third-place finish at the half-mile short track. The top-five result boosted him to ninth place in the driver standings, just 38 points out of fifth.
“Great effort,” said Johnson, who also finished third at Bristol in the fall of 2004. “My guys sat me down a couple weeks ago, we went through our data. I made a wish list of what I wanted the car to do. Chad (Knaus) and the guys really gave me what I needed.
“I wish we could go race again for 500 more because with a couple small adjustments and the rhythm I was picking up on the racetrack, things were really starting to make sense to me.”
Johnson started the race third but stayed out during an early caution period to take the lead. He quickly showed the speed of his Lowe’s machine by leading the next 47 laps before being passed by eventual race winner Kyle Busch on Lap 68.
Despite hard racing with Busch and second-place finisher Denny Hamlin, Johnson never fell out of the top three until a mishap during a Lap 454 pit stop.
“We had a problem I think with getting the left rear on,” said Johnson. “I'm not exactly sure what happened but they were fighting with it.”
“We were lucky there weren’t a lot of cars on the lead lap and we were strung out on pit road -- we still came out fifth,” Johnson added.”
Even with the slow pit stop, Johnson restarted the race in fifth place and steadily picked off Mark Martin and Kasey Kahne to return to third.
When Joey Logano lost an engine on Lap 495 of the scheduled 500, NASCAR threw a final caution flag, setting up a green-white-checker restart.
Johnson followed Busch and Hamlin to the green flag and held off a hard-charging Jeff Gordon to maintain his third-place finish.
“I'm very pleased,” said Johnson. “In some ways to be that close to a win and to see the 18 car pull into Victory Lane, I can now see what the leaders do, and I can visualize being in that position someday, where before we were so far off and had some decent runs but really weren’t in the race, racing for the win. Today we did that. So I'm very proud of all the work.”
The result marks Johnson’s third top five and seventh top-10 finish at Bristol Motor Speedway.
The Sprint Cup Series will return to short-track racing next weekend as it heads to Martinsville Speedway. The March 29 event will be broadcast live on FOX, beginning with a pre-race show at 1:30 p.m. ET.