{"id":21853,"date":"2018-09-14T16:15:26","date_gmt":"2018-09-14T21:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=21853"},"modified":"2018-09-14T21:34:21","modified_gmt":"2018-09-15T02:34:21","slug":"jimmie-johnson-is-ready-to-rally-for-eighth-championship-despite-challenging-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/09\/14\/jimmie-johnson-is-ready-to-rally-for-eighth-championship-despite-challenging-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmie Johnson is ready to rally for eighth championship despite challenging season"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

LAS VEGAS \u2013 Jimmie Johnson<\/strong> made a lot of eye contact with the reporters eager to gauge his Playoff expectations Thursday afternoon at the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> Playoffs Media Day. The sincerity in his voice and the passion of his words left no doubt. He is as motivated as he has ever been to end a first of its kind season-long winless streak.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Jimmie Johnson (Photo by Jonathan Ferrey\/Getty Images for Texas Motor Speedway)<\/p><\/div>\n

A championship run now would certainly change the narrative.<\/p>\n

Johnson and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman have qualified for the 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Playoffs that begin Sunday with the South Point Hotel and Casino 400 (3 p.m. ET on NBCSN, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) taking the final two positions in the 16-driver Playoff grid. Their teammate Chase Elliott is also title eligible, securing his Playoff bid with a career first victory at the Watkins Glen, N.Y. road course in August.<\/p>\n

First-year teammate William Byron didn\u2019t qualify for the Playoffs but is leading the Rookie of the Year championship.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an unusual position for Johnson, a seven-time Cup champion, who typically has already earned a high profile, high title seed by the time the Playoffs begin \u2013 with multiple race trophies already in hand.<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/MENCSPlayoffs_Johnson_081318.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/MENCSPlayoffs_Johnson2_081318.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

\u201cIt would be a disappointing year if we didn\u2019t win a race,\u2019\u2019 acknowledged Johnson, who is on the longest winless streak (49 races) of his certain NASCAR Hall of Fame career. \u201cI\u2019ve set a high bar to win since my rookie year, so winning a race seems like something we should be able to do. If that doesn\u2019t happen, I\u2019d certainly be disappointed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do know that we have not left anything on the table and poured everything we can into it. Not that it would be satisfying on every level but making sure we acknowledge the effort that went into it and not beat ourselves too hard on it. But I certainly hope that doesn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been an uncharacteristic season for Johnson in all statistical categories. His two top-five finishes and eight top-10 showings are the lowest total in his 17-year fulltime Cup career. He\u2019s led only 29 laps through the opening 26 races and his average finish is 17.0.<\/p>\n

But Johnson is quick to assure that progress has been made. His No. 48 Chevrolet is a new body style, and to be fair \u2013 Elliott and Austin Dillon are the only Chevy drivers to win this season. Not to mention, Dillon\u2019s victory in the season-opening Daytona 500 came on a last lap pass.<\/p>\n

Johnson prefers to look ahead, not behind. And who could argue with someone who has 83 victories and a historic championship haul that ties him with Richard Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never been stats-driven,\u2019\u2019 Johnson said. \u201cIt\u2019s really been about the experience. I love being around people and working with my team. I love driving that race car.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, for me, I had a lot of years when I wasn\u2019t very successful in my ascension to my time at Hendrick Motorsports. I fell in love with racing for my own reasons and it wasn\u2019t because of trophies or fame or money. It was because of the experience I had driving the car and I\u2019m still very much in that space.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not expecting anybody to say, \u2018Oh, poor Jimmie Johnson.\u2019 But I would ask people not to think that I\u2019ve had enough and am ready to throw in the towel or that I don\u2019t care or don\u2019t want it. That\u2019s just unfair. Anybody who knows me knows that I\u2019m the opposite.\u201d<\/p>\n

For his part, Johnson\u2019s teammate Elliott remains cautiously optimistic about advancing through the Playoffs. Boosted by his first career Cup victory, the 22-year old sees no reason not to feel good about his Playoff chances, even though he acknowledges the organization has struggled at times this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been an up-and-down year,\u2019\u2019 said Elliott, who leads the Hendrick team with eight top-five and 14 top-10 finishes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like we started off kind of slow. But, to get a win and lock-in to the first round of the final 10 is nice, at least and see where it goes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just excited to get this last stretch going. The summer months can be tough. The season is long. I feel like everybody kind of gets a last little bit of fire for these last 10 races and kind of resets. I\u2019m ready to get going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bowman, who drives the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, acknowledges it\u2019s a challenging road ahead. However, he has earned some legitimate confidence, putting that car in the Playoffs in his first full season driving it.<\/p>\n

He has a career best nine top-10 finishes and a pair of top-fives and has led 67 laps. Securing the final Playoff bid is an achievement. Advancing out of the first round would be high achievement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we have made pretty dramatic improvements from where we started the year,\u2019\u2019 Bowman said. \u201cIt\u2019s too good of a company to keep down. We have too many good people and great resources. I think we will continue to improve and I think we can start off the Playoffs with some good runs.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we can do as good of a job as anybody. We obviously have a great team behind us at Hendrick Motorsports, one of the best in the business. We have a lot of people working really hard and our cars have been getting better each and every week. We are just going to continue that and take it from there.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Johnson, who is the all-time winningest driver (four victories) at this week\u2019s Las Vegas Motor Speedway venue, conceded that even a champion like himself can glean inspiration when needed. He\u2019s won at least two races every season of his career \u2013 all but one previous season (2011) he\u2019s won at least three races.<\/p>\n

He remains optimistic about his Playoff chances and still smiles thinking of his last championship in 2016 when he won the Homestead-Miami, Fla. finale despite having his car taken off the grid minutes before the race for inspection and still working his way back to win the event.<\/p>\n

He knows how to rally.<\/p>\n

Reminded of the valiant way NFL veteran Aaron Rodgers lead his Green Bay Packers to a victory after the quarterback was hurt in the season-opener Sunday night, Johnson smiled and agreed about the powerful intangibles of heart and desire.<\/p>\n

\u201cI watched the game,\u2019\u2019 Johnson said. \u201cIt is so inspirational to see that happen, and I\u2019ve been able to live through and create a few of those moments on my own. It\u2019s amazing to experience it and when you reflect back you\u2019re like, \u2018Wow, I really did that.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to believe you\u2019re capable of it, but until you do it and see it, you just don\u2019t know. I know what we\u2019re capable of and I know we\u2019ve done the unthinkable in the past. To win this eighth championship, we\u2019re going to have to do something that\u2019s never been done before, so I have optimism and belief that we\u2019ll have another look at an eighth championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s this year, next, the year after, but we have everything stacked up around it to make it happen. I don\u2019t expect it to come easy; no championship does.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service LAS VEGAS \u2013 Jimmie Johnson made a lot of eye contact with the reporters eager to gauge his Playoff expectations Thursday afternoon at the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs Media Day. The sincerity in his voice and the passion of his words left no doubt. He is as motivated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":15733,"comment_status":"open","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":[63,67,16],"class_list":["post-21853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-jimmie-johnson","tag-las-vegas-motor-speedway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/TMS-MENCS-JimmieJohnson-110417.jpg?fit=5184%2C3456&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-5Gt","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21853","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\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21853"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21857,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21853\/revisions\/21857"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}