Jimmie Johnson’s foray into racing originated not in a car, but on a motorcycle as a 5-year-old in Southern California competing in motocross. A knee injury just before he became a teenager pushed Johnson into off-road truck racing.
That began a career that would see Johnson, 40, eventually segue into stock cars and climb up the NASCAR hierarchy. As six Cup Series championships and 77 victories attest, he made the correct decision in transitioning disciplines.
But Johnson’s familiarity competing on off-road courses still comes in handy — particularly at Dover International Speedway, the site of Sunday’s AAA 400 Drive for Autism. With its high banking, bumpiness and dips, sweeping turns and abrupt transitions from the straightaways to the corners, the one-mile track is among the most physically demanding in the sport.
Not surprisingly, it’s a place Johnson excels due to that background. He is the track record-holder in victories (10) and laps led (2,999) and enters having won three of Dover’s past four spring events.
“The experience around the track is so intense and so fun,” Johnson said. “I guess it’s the only track that we compete on that really reminds me of my motocross or off-road roots with the transitions into the corners and off the corners.”
Although possessing the ability to win on any kind of track, Dover is where Johnson is at his best. The challenging concrete track is an anomaly, with Bristol Motor Speedway as the only other Cup Series venue not covered entirely in asphalt. That Dover was last repaved in 1995 makes it the oldest surface in NASCAR’s premier division.
The key to success at Dover, Johnson says, is to not overstep while continually searching for maximum grip, which because of the concrete is often an acarpous task.
“There is a balance of it for sure,” Johnson said. “You put in such an effort to make a lap, you continue to challenge yourself in what you are comfortable with, and then on concrete once the tire slips you usually don’t have a very good chance to catch it.
“You feel the car getting closer to the edge, you kind of dance on that line of traction, and then if something goes wrong you hope you have enough room to save it.”
Johnson’s record makes him unquestionably the standard everyone else in the garage measures themselves against. But it also heightens the internal pressure within the No. 48 team. Every race that Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus don’t win at the track dubbed the “Monster Mile” makes it feel like a disappointment.
That sting was felt most recently during Dover’s Chase for the Sprint Cup race last fall when a broken rear axle seal — a part Johnson estimates costs roughly $5 — sent the No. 48 Chevrolet limping to the garage prematurely. He went on to finish 41st, his worst ever result in 28 starts there, which led to Johnson’s unexpected Round 1 ouster from NASCAR’s playoffs.
“That was human error,” Johnson said. “It was something that we did wrong as a race team and cost ourselves a shot at the (championship).”
Still, Dover remains Johnson’s favorite track. And though he rolls off the grid 21st on Sunday after rain scrubbed qualifying, forcing NASCAR to set the starting lineup off practice speeds, the expectation is as it always is.
“You’re going to have bad experiences at all tracks,” Johnson said. “People are going to make mistakes. Drivers are going to make mistakes even if it’s at their favorite track. It doesn’t matter.
“My love for this track … it’s still just as cool now as it ever has been.”
