While the University of Kansas, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville and The Ohio State University prepare to close out the NCAA’s March Madness in New Orleans this weekend, NASCAR prepares to close out its own version when it visits the paper clip-shaped Martinsville (Va.) Speedway oval this Sunday.
With three trips to the West Coast in the last four weeks, plus the bullring atmosphere of Bristol in-between, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series closes out March with more close-pack racing in the tight confines at the shortest track on the schedule. And as he prepares to join his fellow competitors for Sunday’s Goody’s Fast Relief 500, Jimmie Johnson, driver of the No. 48 MyLowe’s Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, is out to prove his stunning statistics at Martinsville are anything but madness.
Most impressive are his consistent finishes in the top-10. In 20 races run at Martinsville, he has finished outside the top-10 only twice – a 35th-place finish in his first race in April 2002, and an 11th-place run last April. Johnson credits watching his teammate Jeff Gordon make laps at the .526-mile oval with helping him figure out what he needed to do to “get around the track better.” The unsolicited tutorial has obviously helped as he has never finished worse than 11th since his first race and has finished in the top-three 11 times in 20 outings.
With his Martinsville resume, it appears for Johnson that the track is the perfect place to close out the madness of March and, like either Kentucky, Kansas, Louisville or Ohio State, start April on a somewhat more calm but victorious note.
Johnson’s Martinsville Speedway Quick Stats:
· Six wins in 20 starts.
· One pole (April 2006) at the short track.
· 14 top-five (70 percent) and 18 top-10 finishes (90 percent) in 20 starts.
· An average start of 11.9 and an average finish of 5.4.
· One DNF (did not finish) that occurred in his first race at the track in April 2002.
· 9,965 of 10,019 laps completed (99.5 percent) and 1,677 laps led.
· Sprint Cup’s best driver rating (122.2), as well as a record average running position (6.3), average green-flag speed (91.506 mph) and quality passes (503).
· Johnson cracked the top-10 in the driver standings for the first time in 2012 after notching his fourth consecutive top-10 finish with a 10th at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., Sunday. The result moved him into ninth place in the standings, just 39 points out of first after starting the season at a career-tying low of 37th at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway.
· Two top-five finishes (Phoenix International Raceway and Las Vegas Motor Speedway) and two top-10 finishes (Bristol [Tenn.] Motor Speedway and Fontana) in the five races run this season.
Blue Bunny Helmet of Hope:
· The Jimmie Johnson Foundation launched the Blue Bunny Helmet of Hope program on Friday at Auto Club Speedway.
Ø Fans and media members have the opportunity to nominate their favorite charity to be featured on Johnson’s helmet at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif., in June, and to receive $10,000 and an ice cream party from Blue Bunny.
Ø Johnson will draw the first two of 12 charities this Friday at 11:15 a.m. in the Martinsville Speedway media center.
Are you looking forward to going to Martinsville?
“I do have a lot of success at Martinsville, but it took me a few tries to get it right. And since then, it’s been a very good track for me. I certainly want to get back to my winning ways there. But, at a minimum, we always end up with a real strong finish. When I think of how close we were to victory last fall, it didn’t happen but we led a lot of laps and our car was a factor in the end. I’m looking forward to going back and trying to win there again. Martinsville is really rhythm-based. That’s me as a driver, and really takes place at any track, but that is one of the tracks where the rhythm is so important and so specific. And I have a very good rhythm for the race in the long run and have always struggled a little bit with qualifying in the short-run rhythm there. I feel like I get better each year. I did get a pole there at one point and I hope to find that magic once again when we go back because qualifying is so important. But it really is a rhythm racetrack.”
Talk about where you are in points right now? Is it a relief to be back in the top-10?
“Well, it definitely is a relief to be back in the top-10. We put ourselves in hole to start the season after our finish at Daytona. I think that was one of the lowest spots we’ve ever been in the points, but our guys buckled down and worked hard and we have the finishes to show for it. I’m very proud that we have finished in the top-10 in all of the races since Daytona. I hope that continues in Martinsville. It has certainly been a good track for us but, as you know, anything can happen there.”
Chad Knaus, Crew Chief of the No. 48 MyLowe’s Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports:
What happened with the oil line on Sunday?
“We had a parts failure with the oiling system. We’re not exactly sure what caused the failure. We do know that we would have had to go behind the wall to fix it if we had gone back racing.”
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