Subscibe to our feedJohnson Finishes 9th in Kansas
Jimmie Johnson finished ninth in Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series event at Kansas Speedway. He remains second in the driver standings, now 18 points behind leader Mark Martin.
After starting from the 11th spot, Johnson moved quickly into the top 10 and the Lowe’s team made minor adjustments throughout the day to help tune in the Kobalt Tools Chevrolet. On Lap 62 Johnson took the lead for the first time and led for a total of 53 laps, consistently battling Greg Biffle for first place.
Click here to see photos from the Price Chopper 400 presented by Kraft Foods at Kansas
Around the halfway point of the race, Johnson brought the 48 Chevy down pit road for four tires, while many of the leaders only took two. It sent Johnson back to the track in 11th spot, putting him in dirty air and making it tough to pass.
“We had such a good car we felt like four was really the way to go,” said Johnson. “We certainly lost some track position and were in dirty air. I don’t know, something happened. We were so fast the run before. I had come through traffic a couple of other times. Then the car was really tough to drive, edgy and all over the place so I’m not sure what happened. We’ll have to get home and look at the car and see what is going on there. It could have just been the track position. So many guys took two and we took four.”
He continued to battle for top-ten position throughout the event but was never able to make a charge and finished ninth.
“There at the end, we were just trying to get some track position back and I just didn’t have the speed that I had the start of the race and had lost a couple of more spots,” explained Johnson. “At the end of the day, we finished ninth and that isn’t too bad. We hate to see guys we are racing in points ahead of us but that’s the way it goes.”
Tony Stewart picked up his first win of the Chase by beating Jeff Gordon to the finish line. Biffle, Juan Pablo Montoya and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top five.
Next weekend’s race at Auto Club Speedway (Fontana, Calif.) will be the fourth of 10 races in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Johnson is the defending race winner of that event. Coverage begins Sunday, Oct. 11 at 2:30 p.m. ET on ABC.