{"id":14465,"date":"2018-01-23T21:37:10","date_gmt":"2018-01-24T03:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=14465"},"modified":"2018-01-24T21:42:41","modified_gmt":"2018-01-25T03:42:41","slug":"desire-still-burns-in-old-timer-jimmie-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/01\/23\/desire-still-burns-in-old-timer-jimmie-johnson\/","title":{"rendered":"Desire still burns in \u201cold-timer\u201d Jimmie Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

CHARLOTTE, N.C. \u2013 They call him \u201cGrandpa\u201d now.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how Alex Bowman and William Byron referred to seven-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson on Tuesday afternoon at the Charlotte Convention Center.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Jimmie Johnson.
(Photo by Tim Bradbury\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Chase Elliott, the third of Johnson\u2019s 20-something Hendrick Motorsports teammates, let him slide with \u201cUncle Jimmie.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOK, that\u2019s a little bit better,\u201d Johnson laughed. \u201cSo I guess I\u2019m going to have to put them in time-out or something, the way that\u2019s going. We definitely have a lot of fun together. It\u2019s so wild. I went from the young gun. … and every time I saw my name written, it was \u2018rookie Jimmie Johnson.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I swear, in the blink of an eye, now I\u2019m ‘Grandpa.’ It\u2019s gone fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson, who won his last championship in 2016, has three years left on his contract with Hendrick Motorsports. Crew chief Chad Knaus, who has been with his driver for all seven of his titles, is in the final year of a deal Johnson hopes he\u2019ll extend.<\/p>\n

But that doesn\u2019t add urgency to Johnson\u2019s desire to win an eighth title that would separate him from seven-time champions and NASCAR Hall of Famers Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt Sr.<\/p>\n

The urgency has always been there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t change anything,\u201d Johnson said during the opening day of the NASCAR Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway. \u201cMy desire to be competitive, my desire to be a champion, my desire to win races has never wavered. That\u2019s who I am. That\u2019s what I am.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited to have all this new stuff going on around us\u2014from rules, internally at Hendrick, the new car (Chevrolet Camaro), my teammates. … I\u2019m taking a notebook and pen everywhere I go, because everywhere I look, there\u2019s something to learn, and that\u2019s exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Johnson won his fourth championship in 2009, veteran Hendrick teammates Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon finished right behind him in the final standings. They knew the car thoroughly, and their feedback was unfailingly reliable.<\/p>\n

Elliott is the \u201cveteran\u201d of the neophytes with two years in a Hendrick car. Bowman has spent 10 races in a top-of-the-line Monster Energy Series car, all subbing for injured Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 2016, in addition to logging abundant hours in the simulator and wheel-force car.<\/p>\n

Byron hasn\u2019t raced a Monster Energy car yet, though he and crew chief Darian Grubb will get their first track time at a Las Vegas test Jan. 31-Feb. 1.<\/p>\n

So much for experience\u2014but Johnson is a glass-half-full kind of guy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI choose to see the positives that come with it,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cSo, out of the gate, just knowing young guys and their raw desire to go fast, there\u2019s a lot that we\u2019ll be able to take away from there. And I think it\u2019s going to be important for me to understand their language and how they describe things, and then understand how to put that into how I describe a car, the sensations I\u2019m looking for.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir effort level is going to be really high, so we might get some inconsistent feedback getting started until they can dial in at 100 percent and identify with that. But I\u2019m excited for a fresh perspective. I find myself going in a cycle of looking at what worked in different years, from a driver\u2019s standpoint, and there\u2019s only a few things we can do to really be prepared.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn talking with William, just as an example, he thinks that driving an RC (radio-control) car and seeing it from a different perspective and working on your hand-eye coordination from that vantage point is helpful. I\u2019ve never thought of that. I probably haven\u2019t driven an RC car since I was his age.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that just goes to show it\u2019s never too late for a Grandpa to learn new tricks\u2014and perhaps to win a title along with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service CHARLOTTE, N.C. \u2013 They call him \u201cGrandpa\u201d now. That\u2019s how Alex Bowman and William Byron referred to seven-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson on Tuesday afternoon at the Charlotte Convention Center. Chase Elliott, the third of Johnson\u2019s 20-something Hendrick Motorsports teammates, let him slide with \u201cUncle Jimmie.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14467,"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":[63,16],"class_list":["post-14465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-jimmie-johnson","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/NHMS-MENCS-Jimmie-Johnson-092417.jpg?fit=4990%2C3339&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-3Lj","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14465"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14468,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14465\/revisions\/14468"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}