Jimmie Johnson hails ‘great day’ at AAA 400 at Dover International Speedway – NASCAR news
Jimmie Johnson was all smiles as he gave his championship hopes a new life by finishing second in the AAA 400 at the Dover International Speedway on Sunday, October 2, 2011.
He could just as easily have won the race. He had two poor restarts near the end of the race and Kurt Busch capitalised on his mistakes to take the lead to the chequered flag.
The second place finish has catapulted Johnson from 10th to 5th in the overall points standings, just 13 points behind leaders Kevin Harvick and Carl Edwards.
Johnson said that he was glad that Dover was in the Chase as he had a good record there. It did not matter to him what race number Dover was as long as it was in the Chase.
Johnson took the blame for making those mistakes at the restarts and knows he should have done better.
“I blew it by spinning the tires. Kurt got a good launch, and we were door to door going into one, and he was able to get by on the outside,” Johnson said. “And then the next one, I was going to try to do that same thing back to him, and I was just trying
to time it when he was going to accelerate. And I didn't time it right. And I had too big of a gap, and fell in behind him going into turn one…its on me.”
Looking behind at the season so far, Johnson said that he left point behind in all three of the Chase races so far and he could have done much better in all three of them. He regretted not having won more races in the regular season and wanted to win a few
in the Chase.
Johnson was also glad that this race did not turn into another fuel mileage battle. He said that balancing both racing and fuel mileage has not been the team’s strong point but they are working on it and will hopefully be better at it in the coming races.
Johnson will now be preparing to further advance the defence of his championship at Kansas. The next race is on Sunday, October 9, 2011.
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