Johnson: 'This team loves adversity'

CONCORD, N.C. – Jimmie Johnson, owner of six Sprint Cup championships, is in a tenuous situation.

A 40th-place finish last week at Kansas Speedway has left him at the bottom of the Contender Round standings in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

Trailing the eighth-place cutoff spot for the Eliminator Round by 27 points, Johnson knows he has work to do Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway and next weekend at Talladega Superspeedway in order to advance.

“What you have accomplished in the past doesn’t buy you a damn thing for the present,” Johnson said. “You have to go out there and earn it.”

But that’s exactly what he’s ready to do.

“I know what this team is capable of,” Johnson said.

The No. 48 team won three races in NASCAR’s regular season, and two top-five finishes in the Challenger Round advanced Johnson to the second round of the Chase.

Even after contact with the wall last week at Kansas left him in his current predicament, Johnson said he’s confident in what his No. 48 Chevrolet SS will bring to the track.

“We’ve been a third- to fifth-place car, and we can finish there and run there, but we haven’t been a dominant car,” he said. “We are certainly hoping that when we come to tracks that have been very good for the No. 48, that we’re able to find that little bit, find that extra tenth that put us in that position and get our mojo going the right way.”

Saturday’s venue could help that process, as Johnson became the winningest driver at the 1.5-mile track earlier this season, breaking a tie with NASCAR Hall of Famers Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip. In addition to his record seven wins, he has 13 top-five finishes and 17 top-10s and has led 1,733 laps.

That type of success at Charlotte gives the driver confidence to dig out of his current points hole.

“We are ready to go racing,” he said. “I love competing at this race track. I look forward to a great race Saturday night. The mindset is really to come in and try to take a trophy out of here. That really solves our problem in the points that we have right now. If we can’t, we still need to focus on finishing as high as we can.”

Johnson explained that a solid finish – even without a win – would give the team hope that if he is able to avoid “the big one” at Talladega, other Chase contenders might get caught up in an incident and he could move up the standings that way.

“We’re here to try and win the race, but if we can’t, we still need to finish well and hope we have some luck down in Talladega.”

One thing is for sure – no one is questioning the work ethic of the No. 48 team. And there’s plenty of racing left.

“We’re going to keep digging and we’re not going to stop digging. That’s what this year is about, and that’s what our team is talking about. We’re not giving up. We’re continuing to try,” Johnson said. “We still have a shot. The situation has changed some and we’ve got to win. But this team loves adversity. This team thrives on it. And there is no quit in us, so we’ll keep digging.”