And why not? What better place is there for Johnson to start getting on a roll than Lowe's Motor Speedway, the namesake track of the sponsor he has helped make famous in his No. 48 Chevrolet?
Johnson, the two-time defending Sprint Cup points champion, has won five times on the 1.5-mile track (seven if you also count his two non-points All-Star victories). That includes three consecutive triumphs in the Coca-Cola 600 from 2003 through 2005, and a streak of five consecutive wins at LMS beginning with the 2004 Coca-Cola 600 and running through the 2005 UAW-GM Quality 500, which was held that fall.
Johnson admitted that Sunday's 600-mile trek - NASCAR's longest event - is a race like no other. To be properly prepared for it, he added, you have to be prepared for anything.
"This race has a history of being kind of weird. I've seen it all in the few years that I've been in this sport," Johnson said. "So I'm going to buckle in and know that anything can happen over the course of the night."
It not only is NASCAR's longest race, but it is an affair that begins in the daylight, runs through dusk, and finishes up at night under the lights. With each tick of the clock, each change in the sunlight and drop of the temperature, the track can subtly change. By the end of the day, the changes in how a car is running on it can be quite dramatic.
"It is a long day. But it's really amazing how fast it goes by when you're inside the car," Johnson said. "For whatever reason, the laps click off, the time goes by - and before you know it, you're in the closing laps of the race. Luckily for us, it goes that way.
"But there are a lot of elements to deal with. You're not always going to have track position on your side. That's something you really focus on during a 400-mile race. And here track position is more important than it's ever been, but you're not gonna have it. There is going to be a lot of strategy that comes into play, and you're going to need to be smart. It's tough enough to run 500 miles at a track; to run all 600 here, you have to be smart and take care of your stuff all night long - so you can be there at the end and race for the win."
Winning races, after all, is what Johnson is all about.
He won a series-high total of 10 last year en route to his second consecutive points championship, making it look all too easy at times. This season it has been anything but easy, as his only victory in the circuit's first 11 events came in the Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix on April 12.
It's not like Johnson has run poorly, although he does have three uncharacteristic finishes of 27th or worse and only four inside the top 10. But those four finishes also all ended up being fourth or better, including second-place runs at Fontana and Texas.
"We're not real happy being where we're at. It hasn't been a horrible start to the season. We've won one event, and we're in a decent spot in the points. But it's in our minds that we need to keep developing our stuff and getting better."
That and the fact that he has at least been running at the finish of all the races has enabled Johnson to inch up to a very respectable sixth in the points standings. He would rather be winning more races, in other words, but it could be a whole lot worse as he continues his attempt to become only the second driver in Cup history to win three consecutive driving championships. (Cale Yarborough did it in 1976, 1977 and 1978).
"Well, you hope to get on that run," Johnson admitted. "We've had a couple races where we got caught up in stuff. But in general, we've been running; we haven't really been taken out of races in crashes. So where we are is where we are.
"We're not real happy being where we're at. It hasn't been a horrible start to the season. We've won one event, and we're in a decent spot in the points. But it's in our minds that we need to keep developing our stuff and getting better. And hopefully, in a perfect world, you get on that tear and start winning a bunch of races."
One problem he will be facing as he attempts to begin doing that Sunday is the fact that the LMS track he'll be driving on isn't the same one he won all those races on earlier in his career. It has since been repaved. Nor is the car he'll be driving the same one he piloted to those victories. This will be, in fact, the first points race at LMS in the new car that NASCAR went to full-time this season.
"This car in traffic is pretty tough to drive. And track position is more important than it's ever been," Johnson said. "The track itself, during the All-Star Race, didn't change as much as I expected. I'm not sure if that's the track, the tire combination, this car, or what ...
"I think a lot of people are like us. We have knowledge from the past, but it's with a different car, a different tire and a different situation. I think we'll be smarter this week than last week. But in the past, when we ran here with the old car and the old surface, literally to the hour of the evening, we knew what adjustment we had to make - because we had things scienced out so well. We're trying to get back to that spot, where we have everything figured out for every segment of this race."
Jimmy Johnson
http://accesswdun.com/article/2008/5/210272