|
|
At long last! Johnson wins 200th for
Hendrick
Nascar...
Pulls away for third Darlington victory; Newman, Busch teams feud at
finish
nascar.com
DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Finally!
After months of frustration, Jimmie Johnson gave Rick Hendrick his
200th Sprint Cup Series victory, running away from the rest of the
field on a green-white-checkered restart that took the Bojangles’
Southern 500 one lap past its scheduled distance.
On Saturday night at Darlington Raceway, Johnson ended his own winless
streak of 16 races, a drought of relative epic proportions for the
five-time champion. The victory was Johnson’s 56th, breaking a tie with
Rusty Wallace for eighth on the all-time list.
Denny Hamlin ran second, followed by Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch and
Martin Truex Jr.
Johnson won the 199th race for Hendrick, outdueling Kasey Kahne in last
year’s Oct. 9 Chase race at Kansas Speedway. In subsequent months, the
organization has been tantalizingly close to No. 200 -- notably at
Martinsville, where Hendrick drivers were running 1-2-3 before a late
caution.
On Saturday night, in winning for the third time at the Lady in Black,
Johnson finally put the question of the 200th win to rest. After
pitting for the final time on Lap 299 of 368, however, Johnson had to
save fuel to make it to the checkered flag.
All of Johnson’s 56 victories have come under the Hendrick banner.
“You’ve got to love that man,” Johnson said of his car owner during a
celebration in Victory Lane. “He said, ‘Two hundred is great, but let’s
go get 250.’ So that tells you where his head is. I love it. Oh, man,
what a day!”
In the closing laps, with the outcome in the balance, Hendrick left the
pit box and paced up and down pit road.
“I had to get away,” Hendrick said. “They said that we were going to
make it [on fuel], but I don’t believe them, you know? Everything has
happened backward for us. We’ve run so good this year and then had such
bad luck ...
“I’m kind of numb, but I’m glad it’s over. I think we’re going to win a
few more now.”
Matt Kenseth finished sixth and trimmed the series lead of Roush Fenway
Racing teammate Greg Biffle, who came home 12th, to two points.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. remained third in the standings, 14 points back,
after a 17th-place result. Hamlin is fourth in points, 17 behind Biffle.
Stewart, himself a car owner, had the highest praise for Hendrick, who
picked up his first victory on a shoestring budget when Geoff Bodine
won the April 29, 1984 event at Martinsville.
“I think it’s phenomenal, especially with the competition over here
getting tougher and tougher,” said Stewart, who lost second position to
Hamlin when his car temporarily lost fuel pressure coming to the final
restart. “It’s getting harder and harder to win these races.
“Especially for it to happen in the Southern 500 -- it’s such a
historic race. It’s a pretty cool milestone.”
The co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing, which gets engines, chassis and
technical support from Hendrick Motorsports, chased Johnson in the late
stages of the race before the final caution, but Johnson’s Chevrolet
was simply too strong.
“I was trying to postpone [No. 200] for another week by trying to get
to Jimmie, but I just couldn’t do it,” the reigning Cup champion said.
“The closer I got to him, the tighter I got. That was one of the best
runs we’d had, but still I wasn’t strong enough.
“He had plenty of car left. He was just riding, trying to save fuel.
They won it in dominating fashion. To win a 200th race, you don’t want
to back into it. They dominated and took it the way they should.”
Stewart also fields the No. 10 car for Danica Patrick, who started 38th
and finished 31st, six laps down in her Darlington Cup debut. The night
before, Patrick ran 12th in her first Nationwide Series race at the
1.366-mile track.
“She ran good lap times [Saturday night],” Stewart said. “There was a
period in the race when she set her balances at her best -- they said
she was within a tenth [of a second] of the leaders at that point in
the race. So I’m really, really proud of her.”
Johnson, who led a race-high 134 laps, held an advantage of 0.8 seconds
and was saving fuel, when Kurt Busch hit the wall on Lap 361. Ryan
Newman checked up behind Busch, only to be turned into the wall by Aric
Almirola. Caution flew for the eighth time to set up the two-lap sprint
to the finish.
After the race, Newman parked his Chevy near Busch’s and exchanged
words with the 2004 champion. Several of Newman’s crew members tried to
confront their counterparts on Busch’s team, and the driver himself,
but NASCAR officials restrained them.
The hard feelings stemmed from the aftermath of the wreck, when Busch
brought his car to pit road for repairs.
“The No. 39 [Newman’s] guys were mad because Kurt burned out of our pit
stall, and I don’t know if they were still there working or whatnot,”
said Nick Harrison, Busch’s crew chief. “Their gas man came down there
raising hell and wanting to fight Kurt.”
“It’s crazy, pit road,” said Tony Gibson, Newman’s crew chief. “Things
happen, and everybody’s emotions run high. It’s a hot night. Everybody
settles down and talks about it. We’re all good. We can’t control
drivers. Nothing against the team -- none of those guys. They didn’t do
anything wrong.”
The race was an anomaly. In a track known for wild action, this year’s
Southern 500 ran caution-free for the first 172 laps, through three
cycles of green-flag pit stops.
By the time NASCAR called the first caution, for debris in Turn 2,
Johnson’s No. 48 Chevrolet had emerged as the dominant car, having
opened a lead of more than five seconds in front of Kyle Busch.
Read this and other stories at Nascar
|
|
|
|
