Jimmie Johnson ‘proud’ of 55th Sprint Cup win at Kansas – NASCAR news
Jimmie Johnson was in a celebratory mood as he took the chequered flag at the Hollywood Casino 400 at the Kansas Speedway on Sunday, October 9, 2011.
The win was Johnson’s 55th Sprint Cup win of his career. The win ties him at 8th on the all time wins list with Rusty Wallace. The win was also Johnson’s 20th win in the Chase, the most of any other driver.
Speaking after the race, Johnson said that he was very proud of the team performance and it was an honour for him to be tied with Rusty Wallace.
“Just an awesome performance for the Lowe's team top to bottom,” said Johnson. “Very proud to have won 55 races and tie Rusty Wallace. That is a huge, huge honour.”
Johnson was already looking ahead to the next one-and-a-half mile tracks, which he says are the team’s strengths. He pointed out that they were also doing very well in Chicago and could have had a good finish but for the fuel-mileage scramble.
This is Johnson’s first victory in 21 races and his last win came at Talladega back in April. However, Johnson said that he was not too worried about numbers and believed that there were a number of races where they could have won but things just did not turn out the way they would have liked.
Johnson said that he was surprised with the comeback that Carl Edwards and Kevin Harvick managed to make in the race, having overtaken Edwards to put him a lap down and had Harvick driving in front of him at one point. He believed that he would be able to make quite a jump on both of them and move into first place but they both fought back to maintain their lead over him.
Asked if he was affected by all the comments made over the past weeks about his championship chances, Johnson said that he was never too concerned about things that did not matter and he knew how his team was performing better than most.
“I don't spend a lot of time thinking about that stuff,” said Johnson. “I mean, If you're watching and reading all the headlines, you can get caught up in a lot of stuff that just really isn't important stuff, and I've known in my heart the speed that we've had as a race team.”
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