Jimmie Johnson Uses ‘Gutsy Call’ To Score Atlanta Win

Jimmie Johnson slipped and slid his way to the victory Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, using pit strategy to put himself in a position to beat a dominant Kevin Harvick in the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500.

In a race that saw only three cautions, the end came down to an overtime finish. Harvick spun his tires on the last restart, allowing Johnson to get away. When a crash occurred on the backstretch after Johnson passed the Overtime Line, the next flag ended the race. Johnson was first to the finish line, scoring the victory at Atlanta for the second straight year and locking him into the 2016 Chase for the Sprint Cup.

It’s the six-time champion’s 76th career victory, tying him with the late Dale Earnhardt, Sr. for seventh on the all-time win list.

“It’s such an honor,” said Johnson. “With the chaos at the end and the crash and wondering about overtime and how it worked these days, I kind of lost sight of that. I remembered it on my victory lap coming down, and I had to come by and throw a ‘three’ out the window to pay my respects to the man. There’s a huge void in my career that I never had a chance to race with him, but at least I was able to tie his record.”

Harvick led the most laps on the day, pacing the race for 131 laps. With Harvick holding the advantage, Johnson’s Hendrick Motorsports team made the call to pit nine laps early, banking on building up an advantage on fresh tires before the other leaders hit pit road.

The strategy worked, putting Johnson over 14 seconds ahead of Harvick over the final laps. On fresher tires, Harvick was able to close, but coming into the last five laps, he had only cut the deficit to about six seconds.

With three laps to go, it looked like Johnson had the win in hand. But a cut tire sent Ryan Newman’s car spinning on the frontstretch bringing out just the second caution of the day.

All the leaders hit pit road, with Johnson and Harvick leading the pack off. On the restart, Johnson got away while Harvick spun his tires and had to work to hang on to control of the car, allowing Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. to slip by.

As Busch and Earnhardt, Jr. tried to chase Johnson down the backstretch, a multi-car crash broke out behind them, involving David Ragan, Aric Almirola, Ryan Blaney and Landon Cassill. With the leaders beyond the cutoff line, Johnson took the win at the line, while Earnhardt, Jr. edged out Busch for second.

Johnson said the move by crew chief Chad Knaus to pit early was “a gutsy call.”

“It was just a great team effort,” Johnson said. “The No. 4 car (Harvick) was awfully tough and it was going to take some strategy to get by him. When he told me to whip it as hard as I could there, I just felt like I was going to take too much life out of the tires. But, it worked. And I got rolling around the top and got to where I got this Lowe’s Chevy in victory lane.”

For Earnhardt, Jr., was pleased with how the race went.

“We had a great car. It was fun to drive,” he said. “It was hard, hard, hard, to drive, but man. I’m glad we didn’t have a ton of restarts today because sometimes those don’t really show the true ability of the car. You get lucky on some restarts and sometimes you don’t, depending on the lane you’re in. And a lot of times you can’t make heads or tails of what to do. Just like at the end we gained a few spots and got lucky. But you ain’t always going to be lucky. I’ve been on the other end of it where you lose spots in late, late restarts and you get so mad. But, there wasn’t no debris cautions, those were legit ones today.”

Harvick had to settle in the end for a sixth place finish.

“We had issues about the last three runs,” he said. “I had to start driving the car different. It just required a little bit different handling. And then we had a slow pit stop there. We got way behind and the No. 48 (Jimmie Johnson) was way out front and I had to drive the car really hard and got the right rear burned up. We just didn’t execute today but everybody on our Jimmy John’s/Busch Chevrolet hung in there all day and we’ll keep at it.”

With the new low downforce aero package in use, the race had an old school feel to it. Some drivers would challenge, only to see their cars fall off and slide back while other surged. This was the theme most of the day, broken up only by tire wear, which had drivers stopping about every 40 laps.

With the cars sliding around, some found it easier to pass, allowing for a lot of passing through the field and meant that the leader could never really move out to a huge advantage. With the first caution coming out for debris on lap 210, drivers had to work to get the best out of their tires while making them last as long as they could.

Matt Kenseth looked to have a strong car on the day, as he moved from his 13th place starting spot to second by lap 36. After a round of green flag stops, he would move to the lead on lap 64. He would stay there until lap 115, when Harvick would take the lead while others were hitting pit road for pit stops under green.

Kenseth’s day went south when he made his pit stop during that cycle when NASCAR penalized his Joe Gibbs Racing team for “improper fueling” after the gas man put a wrench on the car’s deck lid for another crewman to use.

Under NASCAR rules, when the gas man is refueling the car, he is not allowed to do anything else. By placing the wrench on the deck lid, he violated the rule, and was issued a pass-through penalty down pit road.

While Kenseth’s crew argued the penalty, five laps passed with Kenseth receiving the black flag. He was then pulled from scoring for a lap, meaning that when he finally served his penalty, he ended up two laps down. He would finish the day in 19th position.

From that point, Harvick would lead the most laps, but he didn’t do so without challenges. Martin Truex, Jr. moved his way to second and would hound the leader. On lap 256, Truex, Jr. made the pass for the top spot, with Harvick coming back to challenge to take the lead back. The duo would swap the lead back and forth for several laps before falling back with handling issues.

In the overtime restart, it appeared that Johnson would have to battle Busch and Earnhardt, Jr. over the final lap until the crash broke out on the backstretch, ending the race.

Polesitter Kurt Busch finished in fourth, with Carl Edwards in fifth.

Harvick, Truex, Jr., rookie Chase Elliott, Brad Keselowski and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. rounded out the top ten.

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Atlanta Motor Speedway – Hampton, GA
Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 – Feb. 28, 2016

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2. (16) Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Chevrolet, 330.
3. (39) Kyle Busch, Toyota, 330.
4. (1) Kurt Busch, Chevrolet, 330.
5. (7) Carl Edwards, Toyota, 330.
6. (6) Kevin Harvick, Chevrolet, 330.
7. (9) Martin Truex, Jr., Toyota, 330.
8. (24) Chase Elliott #, Chevrolet, 330.
9. (17) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 330.
10. (5) Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Ford, 330.
11. (8) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 330.
12. (26) Joey Logano, Ford, 330.
13. (14) Greg Biffle, Ford, 329.
14. (15) Casey Mears, Chevrolet, 329.
15. (27) Aric Almirola, Ford, 328.
16. (12) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 328.
17. (18) Ty Dillon(i), Chevrolet, 328.
18. (21) Paul Menard, Chevrolet, 328.
19. (13) Matt Kenseth, Toyota, 328.
20. (25) Danica Patrick, Chevrolet, 328.
21. (2) Jamie McMurray, Chevrolet, 328.
22. (3) Trevor Bayne, Ford, 328.
23. (11) Kasey Kahne, Chevrolet, 328.
24. (4) Ryan Newman, Chevrolet, 328.
25. (23) * Ryan Blaney #, Ford, 328.
26. (20) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, 327.
27. (22) A.J. Allmendinger, Chevrolet, 326.
28. (31) Chris Buescher #, Ford, 326.
29. (35) Matt DiBenedetto, Toyota, 326.
30. (34) Michael Annett, Chevrolet, 325.
31. (10) Brian Scott #, Ford, 324.
32. (33) David Ragan, Toyota, 323.
33. (32) Michael McDowell, Chevrolet, 323.
34. (30) Regan Smith, Chevrolet, 323.
35. (28) Clint Bowyer, Chevrolet, 322.
36. (29) Landon Cassill, Ford, 321.
37. (36) * Cole Whitt, Chevrolet, 318.
38. (38) Jeffrey Earnhardt #, Ford, 313.
39. (37) * Josh Wise, Chevrolet, 312.

Average Speed of Race Winner: 155.863 mph.

Time of Race: 03 Hrs, 15 Mins, 38 Secs. Margin of Victory: Caution.

Caution Flags: 3 for 13 laps.

Lead Changes: 28 among 8 drivers.

Lap Leaders: Kurt Busch 1-39; M. Kenseth 40; C. Edwards 41; C. Whitt 42; Kurt Busch 43-63; M. Kenseth 64-77; Kurt Busch 78-79; J. Johnson 80-83; M. Kenseth 84-115; K. Harvick 116-117; M. Truex Jr 118-134; K. Harvick 135-150; J. Johnson 151; K. Harvick 152-154; M. Truex Jr 155-164; K. Harvick 165-183; J. Johnson 184-185; Kyle Busch 186; K. Harvick 187-211; M. Truex Jr 212; K. Harvick 213-251; M. Truex Jr 252; K. Harvick 253-255; M. Truex Jr 256-258; K. Harvick 259; M. Truex Jr 260-261; K. Harvick 262-284; Kyle Busch 285; J. Johnson 286-330.

Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led): K. Harvick 9 times for 131 laps; Kurt Busch 3 times for 62 laps; J. Johnson 4 times for 52 laps; M. Kenseth 3 times for 47 laps; M. Truex Jr 6 times for 34 laps; Kyle Busch 2 times for 2 laps; C. Edwards 1 time for 1 lap; C. Whitt 1 time for 1 lap.

Top 16 in Points: Kyle Busch – 78; M. Truex Jr – 75; K. Harvick – 74; C. Edwards – 73; D. Hamlin – 70; J. Johnson – 70; Kurt Busch – 69; J. Logano – 64; A. Dillon – 63; A. Almirola – 55; B. Keselowski – 54; M. Kenseth – 51; R. Stenhouse Jr – 50; K. Larson – 49; R. Newman – 48; K. Kahne – 46.