{"id":24175,"date":"2019-03-15T21:20:48","date_gmt":"2019-03-16T02:20:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=24175"},"modified":"2019-03-15T21:24:20","modified_gmt":"2019-03-16T02:24:20","slug":"jimmie-johnson-says-enforcing-pit-road-speed-in-qualifying-is-logical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/03\/15\/jimmie-johnson-says-enforcing-pit-road-speed-in-qualifying-is-logical\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmie Johnson says enforcing pit road speed in qualifying is \u201clogical\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

FONTANA, Calif. \u2013 With NASCAR<\/a> announcing the enforcement of pit road speed limits during qualifying, a couple of things are certain: pit road will be safer and less chaotic, and strategies will become more complicated.<\/p>\n

For one thing, drivers won\u2019t be able to hustle down pit road to slot into a specific \u201chole\u201d between cars trying to post qualifying laps. The new policy also is likely to discourage drivers from waiting until the absolute last moment to make a run.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Jimmie Johnson, driver of the #48 Ally Chevrolet, climbs into his car during practice for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway on March 15, 2019 in Fontana, California. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Precise communication between drivers and spotters may be at an even bigger premium than it already is.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a logical rule change,\u201d seven-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson<\/strong><\/a> said Friday morning at Auto Club Speedway, site of Sunday\u2019s Auto Club 400 (3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just kind of weird timing in my opinion. We\u2019re packing our bags and getting ready to head to Fontana and we\u2019re five races into the year and the rule comes. I\u2019m like what? Why didn\u2019t we start the year like this? Again, it\u2019s a logical rule.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Johnson already has come up with a solution to potential speeding when he\u2019s trying to work the No. 48 Chevrolet into an advantageous qualifying position on the track.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just going to be silly if you\u2019re at the end of pit road trying to get into a hole, and your time isn\u2019t going to count because you went over the speed limit,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cI think the way I\u2019m going to prevent doing that is I\u2018m going to go down past the last orange line (at the end of pit road) and sit.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Jimmie Johnson, driver of the #48 Ally Chevrolet, practices for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway on March 15, 2019 in Fontana, California. (Photo by Robert Laberge\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWell, at Martinsville, you\u2019re sitting on the race track. At different tracks, that line is at a different spot. Understanding the intentions of this rule is going to be beneficial for everybody, and we can adjust to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson says he\u2019ll also have to change his mind-set, because there are clear reasons to try to push the speed limit on pit road during qualifying.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn most circumstances, the spotters are trying to put us into holes on the track, and you don\u2019t want to impede somebody that\u2019s on a run,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cSo spotters have visual marks, the drivers are used to seeing something in the mirror, and when they\u2019re told which car to follow, we start rolling off of pit road and try to get up to speed to fill that gap.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other piece to it is that we need every foot of race track to get these cars up to speed to do our qualifying in one lap. So, if you can leave pit road as hard as you can, that also helps. You have those two elements that you\u2019re trying to play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson is a six-time winner at Auto Club with an average finish of 7.2 at the track closest to his El Cajon, Calif., home. He earned the first of his 83 career victories at the two-mile track in 2002 and won most recently here in 2016, his record-tying seventh championship season.<\/p>\n

In qualifying trim, Johnson was fastest in opening Cup practice on Friday, posting a top speed of 179.386 mph on the first of his five laps in the session.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service FONTANA, Calif. \u2013 With NASCAR announcing the enforcement of pit road speed limits during qualifying, a couple of things are certain: pit road will be safer and less chaotic, and strategies will become more complicated. For one thing, drivers won\u2019t be able to hustle down pit road to slot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":24201,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[401,399,63,16],"class_list":["post-24175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-auto-club-400","tag-auto-club-speedway","tag-jimmie-johnson","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/MENCS_AutoClub_Johnson_031519.jpg?fit=5960%2C3977","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-6hV","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24175"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24207,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24175\/revisions\/24207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}