Jimmie Johnson claims 2006 Brickyard 400 amidst first NASCAR championship run | 40 wins in 40 days

Editor’s note: This is the 31st in a 40-part series highlighting 40 of the greatest wins in the history of Hendrick Motorsports to finish its 40th anniversary season. A new installment will be released each day from Nov. 22, 2024 through New Year’s Eve. Votes were taken from Hendrick Motorsports employees as well as representatives of the NASCAR Hall of Fame and Racing Insights with all unanimous selections being ushered in automatically. The remaining wins were deliberated and decided upon by a small panel.

CONCORD, N.C. - By the time the NASCAR Cup Series rolled into Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the 2006 Brickyard 400, there were already signs that the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports team was a little different than in the past. 

The now-famous, milk-and-cookies meeting between owner Rick Hendrick, crew chief Chad Knaus and driver Jimmie Johnson had occurred over the previous offseason as Hendrick attempted to strengthen the team's bond and commitment to teamwork in the face of friction. And all with the goal of claiming a championship after a couple of close calls. 

Winning the season-opening DAYTONA 500, Johnson's first, was certainly an encouraging sign. As were subsequent wins at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway. Johnson entered the '06 Brickyard 400 as the points leader with 17 races remaining. 

But the team had been there before. Just a year prior, Johnson entered the Brickyard 400 atop the standings but crashed, ceding that points advantage to race winner Tony Stewart who went on to win the championship. 

Now it was time to finish. 

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And maybe as much as any race Johnson and Knaus won together, that year's Brickyard 400 would serve as the embodiment of what would lead to a long-awaited breakthrough, highlighting the dominance that would ensue. 

“When I think of the pre-stage racing era, those races were long and there was this grind that had to take place and that was a style that fit me and Chad so well,” Johnson explained in a recent interview with HendrickMotorsports.com. “He could call strategy to get us back to where we needed to be because I didn’t always qualify well. We always kept our eye on the ball and did such a great job of not overreacting and not getting affected by positive or negative pressure.

"People would make mistakes and we clawed our way back into contention and by keeping our heads in the game we would steal a win. Such a part of Chad’s focus was to make sure we execute. Sure, we wanted to be the fastest, but you have to make sure you execute, and he helped us buy into that.”

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That resilience would certainly be important on Aug. 6, 2006. Qualifying wasn't the problem, as Johnson earned the fifth spot, moving up a row when Kurt Busch dropped to the back of the field after going to a backup car.  

But coming into the weekend, teams had expressed concern over tires. So much so, in fact, that NASCAR scheduled two competition caution periods - one at lap 15 and a second at lap 40 - in order for teams to keep track of wear. 

The No. 48, however, didn't quite make it to the second stoppage. Johnson's left-front tire blew on the front stretch on lap 40. Luckily, with the caution already scheduled to wave, Johnson was able to limp the car back around without losing a lap, though his lofty perch in the top three of the field was gone. 

Still, with 120 laps in the event, Knaus knew there was plenty of time. He also knew he had a great driver and arguably the field's best race car. The key to getting back into contention was identifying the problem and making the proper repairs and adjustments. 

And if there was ever a blueprint to the 48 team's success, that was likely it. 

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After fixing the car, Knaus said he coached Jimmie up on a small driving adjustment that would help the issue. The rest, as they say, was history. 

“We had a really fast race car, and we had done a lot of work with the car, and it was super-fast by itself and in traffic as well,” Knaus said. “But the reason we had a flat tire is that when he was in traffic, the shocks on the front would release and the car would heave up a little bit and when it heaved up, the left front tire would feed a bunch of camber out of it – as a car compresses, the camber pulls out of it. Down those really long straightaways, it wore out the outside edge of the left front tire and it blew.

“We coached Jimmie the rest of the day that when he would hit the straightaway, even if he was drafting with somebody, to pull to the inside to put air on the front of the car and push the nose back down. And it took the camber back out of the front and he was able to navigate up through there and pass them all."

Yet, as most things do at Indianapolis, it took patience and persistence. 

Johnson lined up in 38th on the ensuing restart and heeded Knaus' advice, keeping air on the nose and picking his way through the field, one-by-one. Still, tire smoke puffed from the left front of the car as he marched forward. 

Yet, the rubber held. And Johnson surged. 

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By the lap-62 restart, Johnson was already up to 16th, thanks in part to a quick stop from the No. 48 crew. At lap 75 he was pressuring Jamie McMurray for ninth, cracking the top five 18 laps later after another caution and restart. 

With 50 to go, a five-car breakaway at the front of the field formed and Johnson was able to navigate from there, assuming the lead on lap 117 with a pass by Matt Kenseth. 

But it wasn't exactly smooth sailing the rest of the way. A round of green-flag pit stops remained. Then came a caution flag with mixed strategies being executed at the front of the field. While Johnson pitted for four tires, Kyle Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Ryan Newman and Joe Nemechek stayed out while Denny Hamlin and Clint Bowyer took right sides only. 

With Matt Kenseth getting four Goodyears as well and getting off pit road just in front of Johnson, the 48 was left to restart in eighth with just 14 laps to go.  But Johnson made quick work of it, using a couple of cars on lesser tires as a pick, he went three-wide down the backstretch and barely cleared Kenseth getting into turn three. 

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Johnson moved into fourth in less than one lap. Busch and Earnhardt Jr. separated a bit from the field but there was nowhere to hide on a day in which tires reigned supreme. Earnhardt Jr. passed Busch for the lead with 10 to go, but that battle also drew Johnson closer, following Earnhardt by for second. By turn three, Johnson had turned under Earnhardt Jr. and grabbed the lead for good. 

After the race, Kenseth said that Johnson and the 48 had been the team to beat for three years. They'd go on to prove it once and for all that season, finally finishing it off with a championship. And for a half decade straight, they'd remain atop the heap. 

The Brickyard 400 win was certainly one of many signs that the hump was about to be cleared. And it came with lessons learned in previous years. 

“Looking back, there were some moments, but we couldn’t see them at the time,” Johnson said. “That Brickyard win led to a championship trophy and there was so much more at play. Managing the schedule and not burning out the team being one of them. In those earlier years during the era when there was a lot of testing and practices, we tended to overwork our guys, and we didn’t have anything left at the end of the year. We didn’t manage the long schedule good enough. But we got better with that over time as we learned.”