Final NASCAR playoff spot will likely come down to Jimmie Johnson vs. William Byron
If Jimmie Johnson were to get a call after this year asking him to drive in a NASCAR race, and he could choose any track, he’d pick Dover.
“It feels good,” Johnson said after his third-place finish at the speedway Sunday. “This place is a blast to drive. I’ve always enjoyed coming here and making laps.”
It’s not surprising Johnson said he’d want to return to the track where he’s earned 11 wins and 18 top-five finishes, the latest of which came in the second-to-last race of the regular season.
Johnson had a fast car for all laps of the Drydene 311. He raced back from a position deficit, going from 30th to ninth place, after incurring a speeding penalty on pit road late in the second stage. He also finished the first stage in the top-10, in eighth.
It was strategy more than speed that secured Johnson’s second third-place finish of the season, though. With 22 laps left in the race, the caution flag came out for Corey LaJoie following a long green-flag run. The leaders pitted, including Johnson running in the top-10, but the No. 48 Chevrolet crew chief, Cliff Daniels, called for the team to change two tires instead of all four. The quick pit stop put Johnson in the lead when the race went green.
“Go like Hell, my friend,” Daniels told his driver over the radio as Johnson geared up for the final restart.
Johnson gunned it for the final 17 laps on older tires, and although race winner Kevin Harvick and second-place finisher Martin Truex Jr. were able to get by the 48 before the checkered flag, Johnson held onto third, one spot ahead of Hendrick teammate William Byron.
“I really credit Cliff for making that brave call for two tires,” Johnson said. “I think we were one of the fastest cars, if not the fastest car, over the last two runs.”
“Just unfortunately clawing our way back in from losing track position, and we didn’t have the best stop two (pit stops) from the end, so we really just had to gamble,” Johnson added.
Before the doubleheader weekend at Dover, Johnson was 25 points behind Byron, who at the time was the final driver above the playoff cutoff. After Sunday, Johnson has reduced that points difference to four. While Byron’s struggles Saturday and Johnson’s seventh place finish helped, Sunday’s late-lap call was particularly essential to keeping hope alive. Every point counts for the 16-driver postseason. And just a few separate the seven-time Cup Series champion from the postseason during his final year of full-time NASCAR racing.
Johnson’s biggest hurdle now is Daytona, the superspeedway that could produce a wild-card winner next weekend. Johnson said that it’s tough to plan and predict much for any race at that track. Especially when the field starts running in a big pack, wrecks are almost inevitable.
“If you have a dominant car and you can lead the race and control the lanes up front, there’s an opportunity there. obviously,” Johnson said. “But I feel like luck and fate is going to kind of control the outcome of this.”
“Luck” and “fate” have not been kind to Johnson this season. His car was disqualified from the field after the first race at Charlotte, essentially erasing his second-place finish. (His Chevrolet failed post-race technical inspection for a rear-alignment issue and he was relegated to 40th.) Then, he tested positive for COVID-19 in July and was forced to miss the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis. He was 15th in the points standings at the time.
The next two races were won by two drivers ranked below Johnson, Cole Custer and Austin Dillon, further pushing him down the points ladder, as Byron continued earning top-10s in the stages.
“I still think we’re missing some pace and we don’t have dominant pace, but runs like today, to run in the top five, to run in the top 10, we should have been doing this all year long and not having to worry about points going into Daytona,” Johnson said.
“I’m pretty bummed about that,” Johnson said, adding that if they were able to score more points in races at Charlotte and Indianapolis, his team would be in a “much different position right now than we’re in.”
Although the playoff picture with one regular-season race left looks like a duel between Johnson and Byron, as well as No. 21 driver Matt DiBenedetto in 15th (five points ahead of Byron), Johnson said the Hendrick teams are still operating as one unit, including sharing notes.
“It was that way racing my teammates for championships,” Johnson said. “It’s certainly that way going into a playoff race.”
It wouldn’t do much to hide information either since Byron’s crew chief Chad Knaus is well-aware of Johnson’s tendencies as his former crew chief. Johnson said that neither team wants to boot the other from the postseason. He offered the possibility that both make it.
“We’ve kind of seen it coming, right?” Johnson said of the Hendrick duel. “The last couple weeks. The thing that is very encouraging is we now have the 21 car there in the mix, so we both can get through.”
Johnson said the key is racing smart at Daytona, but that he’s not putting too much pressure on himself.
“You keep looking forward and you don’t spend much time putting a lot of emotional value into things,” Johnson said. “I’ve been doing that all year long and I’m running out of races, so I guess at some point it’ll probably hit me, but right now it’s kind of business as usual and just focusing on the job ahead of me.”
He had an optimistic thought despite the looming end of the season, which signals the end of his full-time NASCAR career.
“At the end of the day, for the 24 car, I wish them the best,” Johnson said. “They’re my teammates. That car and that number, Chad Knaus, William Byron, they’re friends, they’re teammates.
“Now that I know there’s a path in for both of us, maybe I’ll stop thinking so many bad thoughts about those guys, and maybe we can both get in.”
This story was originally published August 24, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
