Subscibe to our feedJohnson Finishes 2nd at Darlington Raceway
Whether it was the full moon or the track they say is too tough to tame, Darlington Raceway threw everything it had at the 48 Lowe’s team Saturday night.
Jimmie Johnson started the 367-lap event 42nd after a spin in qualifying sent him to a back up car. But it didn’t take the No. 48 Lowe’s Impala SS long to get to the front of the field early in the race. When a caution flag waved on Lap 4, crew chief Chad Knaus called Johnson down pit road to top off on fuel. The move paid off when a caution came out on Lap 21, allowing Johnson to remain on the track while most of the field pitted.
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Johnson restarted the race fourth and was keeping pace with the leaders when the track tried to tame the 48 team once again.
Because of its earlier pit strategy, the 48 team had to pit a few laps earlier than the rest of the field on the subsequent pit stop. While the Lowe’s Chevrolet was getting two fresh tires during the green-flag stop, the caution came out for a spinning car, trapping Johnson on pit road and putting him a lap down.
The championship team didn’t give up and stayed in position for the free pass which it got on Lap 119. Johnson returned to the lead lap and continued to battle for position throughout the night with a race car that tended to be loose in Turns 1 and 2 and tight in Turns 3 and 4.
As the race continued to unfold, Johnson dealt with a variety of on-track problems including being hit in the rear on Lap 185. He also recovered from a pit-road incident after being tapped while entering his box on Lap 215. He wound up facing the pit road wall and lost valuable track position, but overcame that as well, steadily driving back through the field.
When a yellow flag waved for debris with fewer than 50 laps remaining, Johnson was running in the seventh position. Knaus took a risk, along with eventual race winner Mark Martin and five other cars, and remained on the track while others pitted for a final splash of fuel. Johnson lined up behind Martin for the restart and made a charge for the lead several times in the closing laps, but was unable to make the pass. Martin and Johnson remained in the 1-2 positions and crossed the finish line in that order.
“Once we got some track position, it took me a little while to recognize that I had a good car because when you're back in traffic, the car drives so bad that you can't fix the handling,” said Johnson. “Once I got up behind Mark, got comfortable with the car, understood the grip level, I'm like, ‘I got a great racecar.’ Then I realized I had a shot at winning it. I pushed Mark as hard as I could. He made one small mistake. We needed to go into fuel-save mode at that point. Unfortunately, I just had to ride home.”
“We had four or five things pop up through the night, from being trapped on pit road, spun out trying to get my pit stall, just a bunch of stuff,” added Johnson. “It was a chaotic night. I'm very relieved and proud of the race team. We kept our heads and fought through it all night long and got ourselves a good finish. We'll take second after what we went through tonight.”
Martin’s win moves him to 11th in the driver point standings, the first time this season he has been in the top-12. Johnson picked up two spots to fourth.