Here are some of the highlights from Friday’s media availability sessions at Dover:
Pressure for the 48?
Jimmie Johnson hasn’t won since last year’s Dover spring race (which was in June, so it’s not a full season), which means you might expect him to come here feeling a bit more pressure than a normal weekend.
After all, it’s his best track — he has a record 11 victories here.
But Johnson says there’s actually less pressure when he shows up at Dover, because he’s so confident in how to get around this place.
Still, with Johnson in the midst of a career-long winless streak, Dover could be the best chance to grab a playoff spot and turn his season around.
Can the 48 get back to its old winning ways?
“I think we have created an environment of very high expectations because of the success we’ve had, and I think people forget how special our run has been,” Johnson said. “We certainly want to get back into those ways and have it happen again — but history shows it doesn’t happen very often. We were very fortunate to harness lightning for a long stretch of time.”
Johnson said he’s “a realist” about his team’s progress.
“The encouraging news is we are making our cars better each and every week,” he said. “… We’re a victim of our own success, and I hope to create the headlines that we want and the headlines being along the lines of ‘Well, they should have won. It was Dover.’”
Pit guns among drivers council topics
This is probably a big “duh” since you would figure the drivers would want to talk to NASCAR about the pit gun issue, but Joey Logano confirmed the topic was raised during Tuesday’s driver council meeting at the NASCAR R&D Center.
“We talk about everything — we talk about pit guns and lots of other things,” Logano said. “I think the pit gun thing will be fine. There will be growing pains with some changes. There is a learning curve for the teams and NASCAR, but we have to make changes to continue growing and sometimes there will be pain when that happens. You can’t stay in your comfort zone forever because there is no growth in your comfort zone.”
Logano praised the drivers council as a positive forum for competitors to air their concerns with NASCAR in a private group. And it’s not all bad, he added.
“Our sport is in great health and we talk about that,” Logano said. “We talk about the amount of fans that are still watching our sport and how great things are going and we have a lot to be proud of.
“There is also a lot to work on, and I don’t think that is a secret that we are trying to make our sport better and better each day.”
Pain in the grass
Austin Dillon was just trying to avoid a wreck last week when he cut through the Talladega grass and ended up destroying his car as a result.
“I saw the cars starting to come even lower, and I saw there was a gap in the grass, so I just cut left,” Dillon said. “When I cut left, the first part of the grass was OK — then all of a sudden it felt like I hit a tabletop jump or something and destroyed the car.”
Dillon speculated he may have hit a drain or a buried pipe that had raised the grass. Otherwise, there was no explanation aside from the grass itself.
“It completely destroyed the car,” Dillon said. “It knocked the front clip up and the rear quarter panel off of the car and punctured the radiator, too. We were done after that.”
Drivers like Kyle Busch have been vocal advocates of getting rid of grass at racetracks, but Dillon said he’d like to go back and look at the exact spot he hit before making a judgment on whether the grass needs to go in that area.
Suarez still healing
Daniel Suarez has been posting workout videos lately where he’s using his injured left hand. But while the thumb has made progress from the avulsion fracture Suarez suffered at Texas, he’ll still have to race with a brace on it for now.
“It’s not 100 percent,” he said. “I can use the front palm of my hand very well, but when it’s time to push, my thumb is not quite there yet.”
Suarez said he thought about trying to race without a brace this weekend, but his doctor said to wait two more weeks. The thumb no longer causes him pain inside the car (because it’s stabilized with the brace), but Suarez can’t grab the wheel the way he’s used to with the brace on.
“It’s still stiff and it’s still a little sore when I move it too much, but it’s much better than a couple weeks ago,” he said. “I’m excited to finally have a regular glove and to not wear this thing (later this month).”
The series of 12 Questions interviews continues this week with seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson. The interview was recorded as a podcast, but is also transcribed for those who prefer to read.
1. How often do you have dreams about racing?
I don’t dream all that often, but I do remember one when I was getting ready to race for the Herzogs in ’96 in my very first off-road truck race for them. I had a dream that this brand new beautiful truck he built would only do wheelies — and I couldn’t compete, couldn’t make a turn, couldn’t stay with the pack because every time I touched the gas, it just did a wheelie and I couldn’t turn.
Was this a dream that happened more than once?
No, it was just that one dream, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. It’s probably the only one I remembered through all the years of having different dreams.
2. If you get into someone during a race — intentional or not — does it matter if you apologize?
Yeah, it does. I think there’s also an unwritten code out there when there’s just incidental contact that happens. And then there’s that next level of, “Wow, that probably looked bad. I should apologize, I didn’t mean it.” And then you have to see if the guy believes you or not.
And then there’s the insult of all insults where you just completely dump somebody and say, “Oh yeah, sorry.” (Laughs)
3. What is the biggest compliment someone could give you?
The simple term that you’re a racer. That’s always meant the world to me.
4. NASCAR comes to you and says, “Hey, we are bringing a celebrity to the race and we’re wondering if you have time to say hi.” Who is a celebrity you’d be really excited to host?
I just had a flashback of meeting Vince Vaughn in our transporter a couple years ago. First of all, he was so tall he could barely fit in the transporter. And then he just of course was rolling the humor and dropping one-liners. So I love to have those opportunities to see people and show them around the transporter and through the inner workings of what goes on in a race team.
5. In an effort to show they are health-conscious, NASCAR offers the No. 1 pit stall selection for an upcoming race to the first driver willing to go vegan for a month. Would you do it?
Man, I tried it. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do, but I was just curious and had a three-month run at vegan.
So you made it three months?
I did. I made it three months. Not easy — a lot of planning involved. And I’m sure the first month I made plenty of mistakes because you just don’t know any better. You don’t realize how hard it is to be a true vegan.
6. It’s time for the Random Race Challenge. I have picked a random race from your career and you have to guess where you finished. This is the 2007 Atlanta Spring race. Do you have any idea where you finished in that one?
I don’t remember ’07. Nope, sorry, I don’t. I hope I won.
You actually won that one.
OK!
I was hoping to stump you on one that you won, since you’ve won so many races.
You usually remember the ones you lose. Like losing to Carl (Edwards) at the line or something like that. I wouldn’t know the year off the top of my head, but the ones you lose leave a much bigger mark than the ones you’ve won. (Laughs)
You started third on this one and you led the first 36 laps. There was a debris caution with 10 to go. You took the lead with three to go and you beat Smoke. Does any of this ring a bell?
Yeah, I remember getting by Tony off of Turn 2. We had a little contact, which I know didn’t make him happy. He had a little bit of a tire rub after that, and we were able to get the race won. I remember that now. I just need a little snapshot of what it looked like.
7. Who is the best rapper alive?
I’m not all that versed in rap. But I guess I would kind of lean also the old school with Snoop and Ice Cube. I go back to when I was in high school and some of the big names back then, and that’s about as far as I can go. 50 (Cent) is kind of in there, I guess he’s kind of more recent.
But for whatever reason, I remember NWA when I was in high school. That is what all the cool kids listened to for awhile. My parents were like, “This language is unacceptable in the house.” (Laughs)
8. Who has the most punchable face in NASCAR?
I always think of characters. We were just at Disney World not long ago, and I don’t know why, but I felt like I needed to punch or tackle one of those characters.
One of the mascots?
Yeah, one of the mascots. In general, they have such a punchable face.
Sorry, Mickey!
Right? (Laughs)
9. NASCAR enlists three famous Americans to be involved with your team for one race as part of a publicity push: Taylor Swift, LeBron James and Tom Hanks. Choose one to be your chew chief, one to be your spotter and one to be your motorhome driver.
I would say Hanks as the spotter, he’s such a good talker. Taylor Swift — I’d much rather look at Taylor Swift than Chad Knaus. And we’ll have LeBron drive I guess. Our bus driver does a lot. You need to know the inner workings of the tracks and help work with crowds. With LeBron’s size, I think that he could definitely help with crowd management.
10. What is the key to finding the best pre-race bathroom?
Experience makes all the difference in the world. Some tracks, it’s just port-a-potty, other tracks there’s a suite that you know nearby, or Goodyear’s tire building — there’s always a bathroom in there. And that is always a high priority when you hop off the truck. You can imagine when you’re gonna sit there for four hours and not have access to a bathroom, that last stop is very much on my mind.
11. NASCAR misses the highlight reel value brought by Carl Edwards’ backflips and decides a replacement is needed. How much money would they have to pay you to backflip off your car after your next win?
It wouldn’t be too much. I always loved jumping off things and I was on the dive team and also swam and played water polo. Most of my dives were forward-facing, but I think I could get the rotation around, especially into the grass. I’d be very comfortable going into the grass.
12. Each week, I ask a question given to me from the last interview. Last week, I interviewed Simon Pagenaud. His question is: When you win No. 8, how will you celebrate differently than your other ones, and what was the most epic moment of your first seven celebrations?
The most epic moment would be Snoop Dogg playing the championship party. That was just the coolest experience ever, and we still talk about it over and over. So that would be the first highlight that pops in mind.
Do differently? Thankfully with winning seven, I’ve learned how to pace myself over the banquet week, so I think I would be yet again more experienced on how to manage the four or five days of continuous partying. (Laughs)
I don’t know who the next interview is going to be with. Do you have a general question I can ask?
Do they wear underwear under their fireproof clothing in a race car?
Oh, is that a thing?
I don’t know. That’s where it all came from. I’m like, “Well, I don’t know.” I’d like to know.
Other 12 Questions interviews with Jimmie Johnson through the years:
This is the latest in a weekly feature called “How I Got Here,” where I ask people in NASCAR about the journeys to their current jobs. Each interview is recorded as a podcast but is also transcribed on JeffGluck.com. Up next: Kristine Curley, communications coordinator for Toyota Racing.
Before we trace your career path, what is your current role with Toyota? What do you do?
I help coordinate all our social media — with help from our partners — across a bunch of series. Not just NASCAR, but also NHRA, Formula Drift, POWRi, some of the lower series, ARCA. So there’s a lot, and it’s a lot to coordinate all that.
Then I also kind of serve as a liaison, because I’m on the marketing side now with corporate communications and the PR, make sure we’re all working in lockstep. I always say social media has a marketing and a PR presence, and it’s melding those two and making sure they’re all working together. So we’ve got a great team, and I’m super proud working with some people that I’ve known in the garage for a long time. So that makes things easy. Relationships are 100 percent key in this sport, as you know.
You mentioned that you’ve known people in the garage for a long time…
Are you saying I’m old, Jeff?
No, you mentioned that! But that’s a good place to start, because you were already very established by the time I got to know you and came into this career. So I really don’t know that much of your background or how you got to NASCAR in the first place.
It’s a tangled web of a story.
Well let’s get into it. How did the web begin?
So I graduated from the University of Kansas — Rock Chalk — with a journalism degree. My sisters always say, “You were lucky. You knew exactly what you wanted to do when you went to college.” And I did. I was in was the magazine sequence, which back then, was not really a sequence in journalism school. We were one of the first universities that had it. I really wanted to do broadcast journalism.
I graduated from KU, and then I wasn’t ready to go into the real world, as I like to say, so I went to be a ski bum for a year. Well that year turned into three and a half years. And so while I was there working five jobs — including adjusting people’s ski boots in the ski shop and working in a restaurant at night — I figured I’d better keep my skill sharp with writing.
That’s one thing I will say: Writing is important. I don’t care what you’re doing, you have to write, and you have to be able to communicate. And so I think that is the best advice I’d give everyone: Read and write and keep your writing as sharp as you can. Because whether it’s social media or whether you’re writing a press release or whether you’re writing talking points for someone, you have to know how to speak.
So anyway, I went to work in the ski resort town in Crested Butte and I thought, “I’d better do something so that at the end of this, when I’m looking for a job, I’ve got something to show for it.” So I basically started the sports page of the local little Crested Butte paper. We used to have the extreme skiing competition there, so I’d do that and I’d find little things to cover.
Then I fancied myself a columnist. I’ll never forget, (former Florida State football/basketball star) Charlie Ward was coming out (of college) and trying to decide what sport he wanted to play. So I wrote that he should be a football player. And I remember my dad was like, “What in the world? Why would he be a football player?” That was my first taste of writing a column and having someone not agree with me — my father! Is there anyone that’s gonna bring you down to earth than your dad or your mom?
(Being in Crested Butte) had forced me to get out there and hustle and do things. I also got some odd jobs writing for like the Chamber of Commerce and things like that, so at the end of the day, when I went to the real world, I had something. So I went back to the real world and I wanted to get into television.
Wait, so you just said, “I want to go back and I’m just gonna try and go to a TV station?”
Right, exactly.
That sounds tough.
And I didn’t have a broadcast degree, I had a magazine degree. So I went back to Kansas City where I’m from, and I’m like, “I guess I better start calling around to the TV stations.” I didn’t have a tape, didn’t have anything. So I called around to the TV stations and got ahold of a gentleman in the sports department at a place where at that time they were the number one TV station. And (former quarterback) Len Dawson was the head sports guy.
Anyway, the producer there (John Crumley) was just the most amazing man. To this day, he is still one of my mentors. I don’t remember what I said to him, but I basically talked my way into the sports department and basically said, “I’ll carry cable for free.” And in the meantime, I was also writing for the Kansas City Star — very poorly, I will say — but the gentleman who was there (Tom Ibarra) was also a mentor of mine and to this day we still talk.
And you had your clips from Crested Butte? You just said, “Hey, let me do some stuff, I’m from here?”
Correct. They didn’t have a position. Again, talked my way into it. Covered (future UCLA star) JaRon Rush; I would cover local high school sports. I’d go in and write my stories. And in the meantime, I wanted to break into television, so again, talked my way into the sports department there. I would go cover the games, go get sound afterwards, so I’d have to go into the locker rooms.
So you just had a microphone and camera or something and they’re like, “Hey, go get us stuff?”
So for the Chiefs games, I would go and we’d cover the game and I would write down time codes like, “Touchdown at this time,” and then we’d go get sound in the locker rooms. Same with college sports. Sometimes we didn’t have a camera to go cover it.
I remember that Tim Duncan, who is one of my favorite basketball players, they were playing at Mizzou, and no one would get a camera. There was this old cameraman who no one got along with. Well, I loved him. He was the nicest guy. I said, “Hey, listen, I know you’re off. We don’t have a camera, but it’s Tim Duncan. Can you go? Let’s cover it, and we’ll get sound.” He’s like, “Yeah.”
So we go up to the game and Tim was a superstar then at Wake Forest. The only reason you went to the game was to get sound from Tim Duncan, right? Well, we’re waiting around, waiting around — and in college, you weren’t allowed to go in the locker rooms. So I’m like, “Where is everyone? Why am I the only one standing out here?” Finally I looked at my photographer. I’m like, “Do you think he’s in the locker room and everyone’s in there getting him?” He’s like, “Well, it looks like it.” I’m like, “I don’t know what to do.”
I was scared to death. Am I just gonna walk in? What if I do — will I get in trouble? But I’m like, “If he’s in there and I don’t get the sound, then that’s on me.” So I said, “Alright, we’re going in. I’ll go in first and if someone stops me, we’ll just be like, ‘I’m so sorry. We thought everyone was in here.'”
Sure enough, everyone was in there. So I was like, “Gosh darn it.” At this point there’s a mob (of media around Duncan). Well, I was so mad that I wormed my way to the front, got down in front of Tim on one knee. I remember I was balancing because I had to get down low enough, I remember he looked down at me and laughed, but I just looked up at him and asked questions, got my microphone in there, got the sound and we left. I was petrified, you know what I mean? But I was just like, “You’ve gotta carry yourself, you’ve got to know what you’re doing,” and at the end of the day we got sound.
Back during that time — not to make it sound like it was ancient times — but werewomen in the locker room as accepted as they are now? Did you have any obstacles that way?
I wouldn’t say there were obstacles. Actually, one of the other anchors at the station was a woman and she was one of the first ones. But whenever I got those opportunities, I looked at it this way: Someone gave me a chance, and the last thing I’m gonna do is make them look bad by giving me this chance. So for my friend John Crumley at the station, the only thing that would make me feel worse about what I was doing is if I disappointed him. And so I knew that I had to go carry myself in that locker room in a certain way. I was there to get sound, and it’s intimidating.
I remember Jason Whitlock at that time a columnist for the Kansas City Star, and he’s like, “Why do you walk in these locker rooms (with) your nose always in the air?” And I said, “Exactly. I have to walk in here like I belong, I have to conduct myself professionally, I have to get my sound and I’m getting out of here.” It’s not a very friendly place to come, and it is intimidating, but at the end of the day, I have a job to do and I’m gonna do it the best that I can and do it professionally.
At the end of the day, the guy who is the head publicist for the Chiefs was on my resume. He was one of those guys that was really hard to get to know, but at the end of the day, making those right relationships and Bob Moore was certainly someone to this day who helped open some doors by just having his name on my resume.
How did you go from that point to the PR side and into racing?
That’s an interesting question. So I’m at the TV station and at this point I’m just gonna say, I wasn’t gonna make it on the air. I should have gone to broadcast school. I was at a crossroads.
I was producing, and one of the things that I really enjoyed was producing a live football show that aired right before Monday Night Football for us. I was actually nominated for a local Emmy for it.
I remember one of the shows, I had to sit in the booth — and I am deaf in one ear. So when you’re in the booth, you have to have your headphones on so you can hear back … to the station and still be talking to your people on air. Well I couldn’t, because I can’t hear out of one ear, so I’d have to switch (the headset) over to talk to people. But I loved it. You had to come up with stories.
All of that led me to do a better job as a PR person. (In the racing world) I always looked at things from a producer side when (TV people) would come to me for story ideas. Like I would know, “You know what, if we got this, this is gonna be a good sound bite” or “This is good B-roll,” because I really enjoy producing. I like coming up with the stories.
People make fun of me, but I love to watch pregame. Like last week, we were at our (Kansas) alumni association watch party and they didn’t have the pregame sound up. I was like, “Can we turn the sound up?” Because I love to see the stories. That’s what gets you excited about sports — you can identify with the athletes.
I was at a crossroads, and so it was like, “Do you want to go be a producer?” I was working at the ABC affiliate, which is obviously associated with ESPN, and my mentor’s like, “Do you really wanna do that?” I’m like, “I don’t know.”
So I took a little one-year break, and that one-year break…I kind of got lucky, let’s put it that way. I decided I didn’t want to do television producing as a career, so I was still kind of looking around. In the meantime, one of our friends owned a company, which to this day is brilliant. She managed a bunch of non-profits — because if you work for a non-profit, you usually are short-staffed. But she’d come up with this model where you would move people around from the different charities to help with the other charities’ events.
So they wouldn’t have to go big on staff.
Correct. And so the charity that I was in charge of, I wrote grants and I did the newsletter and PR and all that stuff, was the ALS Association. And the ALS Association in Kansas City was one Kansas City athlete’s charity of choice.
Think back — who is probably the biggest athlete to come out of Kansas City?
I’m blanking.
George Brett.
Oh, duh. Now that I think of George Brett, I think of ALS stuff too. That connection sounds familiar.
Anyway, it just so happened to be the year he got elected to the Hall of Fame (1999). And when he did, the city wanted to do something for him and he had said, “I want it to benefit a charity.”
So we did a week of events that were amazing. One of the big events was a roast of George with (former Dodgers manager) Tommy Lasorda, Larry King and Bo Jackson. Chris Berman and Bob Costas were the emcees.
It wasn’t my event to run, but I helped. And one of the things I did was help Berman and Costas with their script and the setup of how we were gonna do it. And I was like, “You know what? I really like working with athletes and talent.” I came out of that and I said, “Now I know what I think I should do.”
So that’s when it hit you. You were like, “I really enjoy the star part of this and helping them do something.”
Right. And I’ve been lucky to meet a lot of people, but at the end of the day, they’re just people like us and we all have a job to do. But I really enjoy it because of all of that experience.
So I was like, “OK, what am I gonna do?” Enter my mentor at the TV station, and the assistant news director he was friends with had gone to one of the big advertisement firms in Kansas City. One of their new clients was Sprint, and they were getting in racing.
I remember I was in the middle of all of this stuff with George Brett. I had an interview, I remember he asked me, “Can you handle death?”
(Gets choked up and pauses to collect herself.)
And I was like, “Yeah. This sounds exciting.”
In the interview, they asked you, “Can you handle death?”
Yeah, and I didn’t know what he meant by that. He’s like, “Can you travel and all that stuff” and I said, “Love to travel.” I didn’t quite get what he meant. And so I started working with Adam Petty. (Speaking through tears) And let’s just say I grew up a lot in the year that I worked with him. (Editor’s note: Petty was killed in a 2000 crash at New Hampshire at the age of 19.)
But what I learned is how this sport is a family. And so after Adam passed, I decided I wanted to stay in the sport just because of the people. Like if you’re not happy and you don’t work with good people, it’s not fun. So I made a decision that I wanted to stay in the sport, and there are amazing people. Again, relationships are 100 percent key.
Adam Petty and Kristine Curley (photo courtesy of Kristine Curley).
Was that a hard decision for you, or was it sort of obvious at the time to stay in the sport?
A little bit. Kyle (Petty) finished out the year in Adam’s car, and so Kyle asked — I helped finish out the year with Kyle in the car. I think after that is when I was like, “What do I want to do?” And so an opportunity presented itself to stay in the sport, and I decided it was time for a change. I’d have to move to Charlotte for it, and I thought, “I’m gonna just try it. And if I don’t like it or it’s too hard, then I’ll get out of it.”
Seventeen years later of working with drivers, and it was good and I’ve worked with some amazing drivers.
Then I went to work with Bill Elliott and Ray Evernham.
That was immediately after the Pettys?
Yep. One of the things I was always intrigued with my father was a lawyer, and law always intrigued me. In fact, in journalism school, (law) was a weed-out class. It was a class everyone had trouble with. And I remember, one of my friends, she was straight A’s and had the hardest time with it, and I loved that class. Didn’t even really had to study for it. Like my mind just thought that way.
And I remember Cindy Elliott (Bill’s wife and Chase’s mom) was talking about, “Our sport needs some good agents.” And she was like, “Maybe we should send you to law school.” I told her that (recently) and she laughed, like, “Did I really say that?” I’m like, “Yes.” And to this day, I’m like, “Why didn’t I (become an agent)?” That is my one regret. My path certainly would have been different. But I didn’t do it, I stayed in PR and did that for a long long time.
So you were doing Bill Elliott’s stuff. How did it come to be that Jimmie Johnson was next?
So Bill retired. And I will say, working with Ray Evernham back then helped me prepare for the next step (with Chad Knaus). But anyway, yes, after that, Bill retired and again, it was, “Do I wanna stay in the sport?” A friend of mine who was doing Jimmie’s PR for the first two years was going to come off the road and work for Jimmie. He said, “We think you’d be great.”
I met with people from Lowe’s who become another mentor for me — the person who hired me. And I said, “Listen, here’s the deal: You can look at my resume, but at the end of the day, 90 percent of this job in this sport is through the relationship you have with the drivers. And they have to trust you that when you go to them and say, ‘I need you to do this AM radio station,’ or ‘I need you to do this’ that there’s a reason for it, and there’s a reason something’s on the schedule. That you vetted through it and talked through it and you give them the tools that you need to succeed on it.”
So I said, “Alright, give it a try, we’ll see.” This was a point in time where I was either gonna stay in the sport for a while or I’m gonna go try something else. So ended up staying with Jimmie for 10 years, and then went to work with Clint Bowyer, two totally (different personalities). (Laughs) But again I had to learn how each of them are very different.
And Bill was very different. An interesting thing — Bill back in the day would much rather do an interview one-on-one.
Instead of a big group session?
Correct. I think he’s just more comfortable that way. And he’d very much rather sit and talk like that. That’s just more his style. I think big groups were not his thing. Other drivers would just prefer to just get everyone there together, except for if it’s a special one-on-one request, but again, it’s knowing that and understanding what it is that is gonna set them up to succeed that’ll get you a good interview.
Can you just give us a sense of what it was like during the Jimmie years? You were there for his whole rise in some ways and were there for like six of the championships. So that had to be an unreal time in your life, experiencing all this and seeing all of it first-hand of what’s gonna go down as a legendary period in NASCAR history, I imagine.
Yeah, it was great. I will say this, and I don’t mean this to sound ungrateful. Winning is great; winning is absolutely why we are in sports. But I will say I would go back and work with Adam where I never won a race in a heartbeat. I’ve told Jimmie that, and he knows that. Because winning is important, but it’s the people that you work with who are important, and I’ve been lucky to work with some of the best, and I don’t know how I lucked into that.
Each of them to this day — Kyle Petty is still a dear friend, Jimmie is a dear friend, Clint is a dear friend. You can tell I’m a crier, but I shed a few tears for him (winning at Martinsville). Martin winning last year, amazing, both him and Sherry (Pollex).
Again, when you are surrounded and get to work with good people, what more could you ask for, right? And those people take a vested interest and care about you.
I always tell my family, if something ever happened and I needed to get home, it might not be the driver I work with, but there’s someone there in that garage that would get me on their plane and get me home. And I think that’s the thing that keeps people (in the sport).
It’s a grind. This sport is a grind, and it will tear you down and it will wear you down sometimes. But it’s also a family. Sometimes we’re a little dysfunctional, but at the end of the day, we care about people and we want to make sure that those people are taken care of.
So yes, it was certainly amazing to be able to win championships, and I’ve been lucky to win a few. You meet a lot of people, so that’s amazing. But again, I don’t mean to sound like it’s not a big deal, but I only have one picture hanging up of me with an athlete. And it was with Buck O’Neil, the old Negro Leagues player who passed away a few years ago. He was just an amazing, cool guy. And of all the people that I’ve been lucky enough to meet, and there have been a few, he’s the only one that I have a picture of myself with hanging up. Now if I met Willie Nelson, that picture might be up too.
Kristine Curley and Buck O’Neil (courtesy of Kristine Curley).
So you talked about how other women might be listening to this and hoping to maybe do what you’ve done someday. It’s quite a path that you’ve had and so many people you’ve gotten to meet, like you’ve said. What’s some of your top advice that you’d give to somebody who’s just trying to make it on their own path?
My biggest advice is, you have to be professional and you have to carry yourself sometimes or carry yourself to a higher standard maybe than is expected. And that’s OK, right? One of the things, I was sitting next to a co-worker the other day and he heard me speaking to someone, and I got off the phone and he gave one of the nicest compliments anyone could ever give me. He’s like, “I want my daughters to meet you, because the way you talked to that person, I could tell that they were being disrespectful to you, but the way you held your ground and the way you spoke back to him, I want my daughters to feel empowered that they can do that, too.”
And of course, anyone that’s listening to this knows I cry, so of course I cried at work. I’m like, “Well thank you. There is no higher compliment that you could give me as a woman than to say that.”
But it’s hard. It’s not easy. Back when I was doing stuff at the TV station, I was covering the Chiefs, and we’d be out sometimes — my friends and I — and some of the Chiefs players would be out. My friends would be like, “Let’s go over and say hi.” I’m like, “No, because they’re out on their personal time and they don’t need to see me and I don’t need to see them because when I go into that locker room, they need to know I’m there doing business.” And sometimes that’s not fun, sometimes you want to go.
In my head, I always had to keep things very scheduled, very professional. Like for Jimmie, there’s always so many things we had to do, right? Sometimes we had to be down to the minute, like, “You’ve got seven minutes (for an interview)” — but at least I’m giving you seven minutes, right? I’d come to you: “What are your questions? What do we need to prepare them for so when we get into the interview, you’re getting what you want and Jimmie or whatever driver it is are expressing their true selves?” So again, it’s setting everyone up to succeed.
Thank you so much for being willing to do this.
I don’t think I’m worthy of a podcast, but if there’s one little girl or high school, college, whatever someone who’s struggling — just don’t give up. Keep calling, keep after it, be professional when you do it. But all it was was me picking up the phone and asking someone to give me a chance.
This is the latest in a weekly feature called “How I Got Here,” where I ask people in NASCAR about the journeys to their current jobs. Each interview is recorded as a podcast but is also transcribed on JeffGluck.com. Up next: Lauren Edwards, founder and CEO of Reine Digital.
Can you explain what you do and what Reine Digital does?
So Reine Digital, I founded it at the beginning of 2017, and it is a social and digital consulting agency. I work with a lot of athletes, and especially drivers in our sport and media personalities in our sport. And then I have a couple other small clients on that are more business- and brand-focused, but we really focus on kind of the athletes and personalities.
So Jimmie Johnson is among your clients?
Yes. Jimmie was my first client. I originally worked with Jimmie for five years, helping him with his social and digital and then kind of stepped out on my own and he signed on as a client. Steve Letarte is another client, which has been so much fun. It’s a very different side of things, kind of getting into the broadcast side of things as opposed to a driver.
And then I have a couple other people I’m kind of just starting to work with this year, which is really exciting and new and I’m very thrilled. I’ve actually randomly gotten into wineries and distilleries, kind of the alcohol side of things, which is very different and the laws are crazy — it’s nothing like sports — but it’s been really fun.
Let’s talk about how you got to this point. So you went to William & Mary. Was racing ever on the radar for you?
No. So I went to William & Mary because I wanted to do international economic development.
That’s different than this.
You probably couldn’t get more different of a career path. So I went there to study international relations and economics as a double major. I took both those majors and I was feeling great.
I grew up right outside of Philadelphia. So (former Pocono track president) Brandon Igdalsky’s mom, Looie, lived not far from where we lived and my parents were friends with her. I’ve been really close with that whole (Mattioli) family for years. And so when I was in college, I went up to do a marketing internship with them (at Pocono), just because I felt like it would look better on a resume than being a lifeguard or a waitress or something like that that all my friends were doing.
I was like, “OK, I’m gonna go do this and at least just check the boxes, get some marketing experience.” And I fell in love with it. I was like, “This is amazing. I love it. It’s fun, it’s exciting, I’m good at it.” And so my junior year, I went back to William & Mary and added a marketing degree so I could get into sports.
Some people go to an internship based on the path they want to follow. You did the internship thinking it might help your resume, but then being inspired by that led you down a completely different road?
One hundred percent. My entire high school career and the beginning of my college career was 100 percent focused on government, international politics, economics, that route. And I’m still passionate about that and I love it — and my friends will tease me because I read these really nerdy books about world politics and economies. But for me, just working in it, just being there in the summer and kind of experiencing what the sport was like, I just knew, “OK, now I have a passion for this and I want to do it.”
So what happened next? What was your next step?
When I graduated college, started applying for jobs and there was a position at Octagon (sports marketing agency) that was available. It was actually on the DLP account, back in the day when DLP was on the 96 car. So I took that position.
Hall of Fame Racing!
Yes, Hall of Fame Racing, absolutely. Yeah, that was a really fun account and it was crazy to come into the sport and kind of be with a team, with a car, kind of be with a sponsor, and so I did that for six months. And then that team went away and stopped racing, and so I moved over to the Sprint account.
When I was first on the Sprint account, I was doing more customer relations or customer experience kind of things with Sprint and Sprint customers at the track. And then they literally sent out an email, pretty much company-wide to everyone at Octagon, and they were like, “Does anyone have experience in social media? Miss Sprint Cup needs to be on social media.”
What year was this?
That would have been the end of 2008, beginning of 2009.
So it was pretty early on in the Twitter days.
Very, very early on. And that’s kind of why they sent the email. There were a lot of very smart, amazing people at Octagon — just not a lot of people knew a lot about social media. I mean, Facebook really only started in 2003, 2004, like kind of gaining traction. So I basically was like, “I’ve been stalking people on Facebook for years, I got this.” I kind of fell into it that way and started a lot of the social side of things with Miss Sprint Cup, and just loved it and enjoyed it. It was just kind of my niche that I fell into.
It’s not like you had a bunch of Twitter experience — because nobody did. So you were sort of learning on the go?
One hundred percent learning on the go. It was a lot of on-the-job training. As new platforms would come…it was “Oh my God, is this gonna be the next big app? Is this gonna be the next big social media platform?” So there was a lot of research in the beginning days of what made sense and how things should be.
I remember the very first time Miss Sprint Cup ever tagged someone in a tweet using the @ symbol and it was this big to-do with our clients and we had to have this big meeting about it. And now I mean, it’s just commonplace, that’s what you do. But I distinctly remember the first time we did it, we tagged Juan Pablo Montoya. He had done something, said something in the media and we tagged it, just kind of like a cute little, “Oh hey,” and it turned into this huge thing of, “Can we do this? Is that allowed?”
Lauren Edwards, right, poses with Monica Palumbo during her days working with the Miss Sprint Cup account. (Courtesy Lauren Edwards)
We all look back now and say, “Well Facebook’s big, Twitter’s big, Instagram’s big,” but you didn’t know back then. I remember when Google Plus came along and things like that, people were like, “This is gonna be huge,” and it was a total flop. So is it all trial and error that you sort of taught yourself all these methods with all these various platforms?
So I think one of the things that kinds of helps me is I do love learning, so I’m constantly reading and kind of researching and listening to what people are talking about. For me, I mostly look at the data. So we did dabble in Google Plus when I worked for Jimmie, we had done some things for Google Plus. And while it was a really great platform, it really was awesome, we didn’t see the same numbers that we saw everywhere else even though worldwide.
I’m just a big numbers person. So John Lewensten works with Jimmie, kind of manages everything day-to-day Johnson-related, and when I first started working with Jimmie, John told me, “Yeah, we can just get off Facebook. Facebook is dead, we don’t need it. We can just get rid of it.” And I was like, “No, that’s a terrible idea. Facebook is not dead.”
It’s funny, because you just don’t know. It seems like the trends are going a certain way and we’re used to like MySpace dying and things like that, and against all odds, some of these have stuck around.
Totally. For me, I look at each platform differently, so I look at Facebook and I see Facebook is such a strong click-through platform. So regardless of where your followers fall across, almost all my clients’ click-throughs tends to be higher on Facebook than anywhere else. A lot of that has to do with more people use Facebook on desktop than Twitter or Instagram. So you’re more likely to click-through on a desktop than you are a mobile phone.
It’s changed a little bit since Apple has created the ability to go back to the app that you were on. When they didn’t have that ability, we saw significantly less click-through from any mobile-based thing. I’m getting nerdy on you, but I’m a big numbers person; I’m constantly looking at the data to see what’s working and where our strategy needs to go.
That’s fascinating. So when you were with Miss Sprint Cup, when you’re working on that stuff, why did you feel like trying to work for Jimmie was the next step for you?
Jimmie got a lot of pressure to get on social media and realized very quickly that it was gonna need a full effort between that and building his own website and things like that. And while I loved Octagon and I loved the Miss Sprint Cup program, I just felt like I needed the next step, to do something different, to take something more on. And I liked the idea of working directly with an athlete. With Miss Sprint Cup, she was more of a spokesperson for Sprint and it was more kind of brand-related. I liked the idea of building someone’s personal brand and still working with partners through them.
So that’s really what a lot of my job with Jimmie was, was kind of working with him on the personal brand side of things and opening up these platforms to him and coming up with cool ways to utilize them. And on the flip side, working with all of our partners and everyone that related to the car, his personal sponsors, those kinds of things, and making sure that everyone is super happy and sees the return on the investment that they’re getting from him.
How much of the lessons you learned doing the Miss Sprint Cup stuff applied to the Jimmie stuff? Were you having to re-teach yourself different methods or different ways of conveying social messages, or did a lot of it transfer over?
The big thing, and where I’ve really kind of found my niche in the NASCAR world with Reine Digital, is it’s very different when you’re not the one posting. So a lot of people are running team accounts or brand accounts or things like that within our sport, and they are the voice of the brand; they’re just sending the message that they want.
For me, I’m not the one sending the messages — it’s someone else. And I’m trying to help guide them and say, “I noticed you’re not posting a lot of this; we need to see more of this on your channels,” and things like that. It’s just a different kind of conversation you’re having as opposed to just picking up your phone and being like, “OK, I know I need to send this today.”
At some point, you get to the point where you want to start your own thing. That had to be a big leap — having started my own thing myself, I know that’s very scary. What was the process like to go out on your own? Was there a lot of thought, or was it a clear vision to you that you wanted to do it? How did that evolve?
It was a lot of conversation. Jimmie was the one that encouraged me to do it. He called me from a gondola in Aspen one day and he was like, “I’m on the gondola, and I really think this is the direction you need to go in life.” And we had talked about it with Jimmie a little bit before. Jimmie definitely saw the value and what I could bring to working with individuals, and he had me work with some of his friends, just kind of helping them with their social media throughout the years that I had been with him. And then we just kind of came to this point where we were like, “OK, this can work. This can really be something.”
I was completely terrified. I am very much a behind-the-scenes person. I kind of love my job because I am not out there, and so the hardest thing for me was kind of realizing that in order to be very successful in this business, I have to do a little bit of promotion and kind of put myself out there because I am my business. So that’s been the hardest part of it I think, which is crazy, but for me, that was definitely the hardest part.
But yeah, I think having Jimmie’s support, there’s no way I could even explain how much that means knowing that he has the faith in me that I can do it. I’m like, “OK, well then yes. Of course I can.”
Lauren Edwards poses with Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus after Johnson’s seventh championship.
It’s not like you were breaking it to him and you’re going to leave. Where if he wants to keep the business with you, he’s gonna have to do this. It’s more like him saying, “You’re doing a great job, I have faith in you, I believe you can deliver for other people aside from just me, go do this.” That’s quite a phone call to receive.
At the time I was 29, and I was kind of at that point where it’s like, OK, I need more. I want more. I’m just craving more involvement in other things. I think everyone hits those points a couple times in their career where they’re just like, “Where am I going, what’s my trajectory? What do I have that I feel like I rock and I own?” So that’s kind of how the conversation started. It wasn’t totally out of the blue where Jimmie didn’t just call me up.
I never wanted to leave him, but I was also like, “I know I need more for my own self-fulfillment,” and that was kind of the path that we went down. So it was a really quick process. He called me in January, and by the middle of February, I had the business up and running. So it was fast.
Being on your own now and not only doing all the social stuff you’re doing but being a business owner and having to worry about that, has that all been self-taught?
One hundred percent. I’m sure you can commiserate when it comes to things like accounting that I’ve never had to do before. Like, I don’t know this. So luckily, there have been some really amazing people that have kind of given me some advice and some guidance and kind of helped along the way, and so that’s been awesome. But yeah, it’s completely self-taught.
Luckily, I’m so passionate about what I do and I’m so passionate about the clients that I have and the work that I’m doing with them that it kind of keeps me going. But yeah, as far as running a business, it definitely was never something I had seen in my future — it’s not something I studied, it’s not something I knew a lot about, so I was just learning as I go.
It’s not like you have to go to school and get the degree to learn how to run a small business or something like that. It sounds like if you have the passion and you have the drive to do it, that stuff can sort of make up for it.
One hundred percent. I think finding good people who can give you some advice and can help you along the way, I think that’s really important. I think if I didn’t have the support system that I have with my husband, Jon Edwards, who works with Jeff (Gordon), and John Lewensten, and kind of those people who really give me some support and advice, I would have been lost.
And then a little trial by error, I mean, there are decisions I make and I look back and I’m like, “I don’t know that I should have made that decision,” but at the time, I made the decision based on the facts that I have.
For me, the most important thing is that all of my clients are really happy — and they are — so that matters the most to me. And it’s something that I’m like, “OK, well, the other stuff, we’ll figure it out.” I’m not the only person that started a small business, but I want to be the best in my space in this small business because that’s the only way I’m gonna grow.
Let’s say somebody’s reading this and they’re like, “Wow, that’s a really cool job, I’m good at social media, I feel like I could help people with social media.” Where would they start? What path would you recommend they go down?
It’s crazy because the social media world has changed so much in the past five to eight years. There weren’t jobs for social media really 10 years ago, and now there’s tons. I’m still really involved in the William & Mary alumni system and still work with students there, and I tell people that are looking to get into sports: Working for agencies is great. There’s so many agencies in our sport, and the great thing with agencies is that you get to experience a lot, so typically when you’re working on an account, you’ll have your specific role, but you can always help out other people on the account. So I think that’s really beneficial and you learn so much.
I also think with the way teams are growing and the way teams are managing social media, those are positions that are opening up more frequently than we’ve ever seen before. I think there’s a lot of opportunity there.
I would say the best thing to do is personally, even beyond like where to start, is to become really well-rounded. I think I excel in the strategy side of things and kind of how you best take the content that you have and distribute it, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t not be good at capturing content. So taking photos, taking videos, editing videos, doing graphics, things like that. Yes, that’s not my strong point, but it’s something I really worked to teach myself so that I’m well-rounded for whatever need a client may have.
A couple times on these “How I Got Here” podcasts, people have mentioned agencies. For people who don’t know, can you explain what agencies are and what they do for somebody that has no idea about marketing or anything like that?
Absolutely. So agencies are a fantastic way to get into the sport because basically what they do is they work with a lot of the brands that are in our sport and do a lot of the brand activation. So there are some major brands that want to get involved in NASCAR, that want to be a part of it, but there’s really not anyone on their business team and their marketing team that knows intimate details about our sport. So it’s easier for them to go hire an agency that has a ton of that knowledge and can really help them get the most out of their sponsorship dollars.
There’s small agencies, there’s large agencies, it kind of runs the gamut, but they’re really valuable because it’s a lot of people that are super knowledgable about the sport and can help the brands who want to be involved but may not know anything about it.
Now your agency right now is social media specific, so somebody could hire you looking, “We have a weakness here, we need to pick this up,” and you would help them with that strategy or help guide them in that way, right?
Absolutely. So a lot of the bigger agencies do tend to have every part of the business in NASCAR that you can imagine, so they do everything from displays to signage to activation to hosting and all of that. For me, my agency is much more focused on kind of the social and digital side of things, so anything related to your online presence is kind of where I would fall. And then there are some other agencies that are more focused on just display units and agencies that are focused on hosting and things like that.
So it all kind of depends on where your personal interests lie, but I always recommend people kind of start out at an agency. I also think it’s really important in our sport for people to understand the brand side of things and the sponsor side of things before maybe going to a team or working for NASCAR, doing some other role in the sport, because as we all know, our sport is so heavily sponsor-driven and it’s such an important part of our sport that I think intimately understanding that is important before taking on other roles.
Where do you go from here? You’ve already accomplished a lot and come very far and made a name for yourself in the sport. Where do you see it going?
That kind of changes a little bit day by day as my business continues to grow. For me, I would like to really grow into a smaller agency that really focuses heavily on the social and digital side of things. I don’t foresee this growing into kind of a one-stop shop agency side of things.
I look at a lot of the athletes in our sport and I do a lot of research on athletes in other sports and media personalities, celebrities and I think we do an awesome job in so many ways, and then there are other things we fall short on. And that’s true of any sport, but for me, that’s what I’m passionate about, is saying, “OK, let’s get a lot of our drivers up to speed and let’s help them be the best that they can be,” because these guys are cool and they’re fun and they’re awesome, and we don’t always see that on social. That’s really a passion for me, so continuing to kind of sign drivers, work with sponsors in our sport, work with a lot of industry members and continue to grow into a well-respected small agency.
If you thought Jimmie Johnson was stressed or worried about the future after learning Lowe’s will leave NASCAR following this season…well, not so much.
Actually, Johnson came off the opposite way on Friday — expressing genuine confidence and optimism about what he called the “opportunity” to partner with a new sponsor.
The 42-year-old also made it very clear there are no plans to stop driving anytime soon.
“I guess maybe it’s the eternal optimist that I am,” he said. “I have more to do and I enjoy the process. Hendrick is home and retirement hasn’t been on my mind.
“I want to win. I want to win an eighth championship. … I’m not done yet.”
Johnson was partnered with Lowe’s as soon as he arrived in the Cup Series, so he’s highly curious to “see what’s out there and what we can do from a branding standpoint for a new company.” He said he believes NASCAR is growing and Lowe’s departure is not a reflection on the sport.
“It’s a business decision that Lowe’s needed to make, and that stuff happens,” he said.
Furthermore, the seven-time champion said he doesn’t anticipate it would be any harder for him to find a sponsor at his age because many major corporations operate on year-to-year marketing plans anyway.
Johnson added he plans to be heavily involved in the search process. Perhaps, he suggested, the driver himself could even contribute to some leads after making so many connections with various people during the course of his career.
“This is a really unique opportunity and it’s also a great learning and growing moment for myself,” he said. “I want to be involved in this process and learn along the way. And maybe a relationship or two that I have made over the years will come to fruition and maybe help with sponsorship, too.”
What happened: Hendrick Motorsports announced Lowe’s will not return to the team next season, meaning Jimmie Johnson will have a new primary sponsor for the first time in his career. Lowe’s, which has been the No. 48 team’s sponsor since 2001, said it will “now look to invest in other strategic initiatives.” Johnson’s contract runs through 2020, and he made it clear he’s “not going anywhere” despite being 42 years old. “I have more to accomplish in this sport,” he said. “I feel the best I’ve ever felt physically. I’m motivated. I’m focused on winning races and chasing more championships. Someone (a new sponsor) will be a big part of writing that story with us.”
What it means: This is the end of an era in several ways. First of all, Johnson, Chad Knaus, Hendrick Motorsports, the 48 car and Lowe’s have all so tied together for such a long time, and now Lowe’s won’t be there. It’s going to be very strange to see Johnson promoting a different company next season (and yes, I think he will race for at least two more years). But perhaps more significant for NASCAR, Lowe’s was one of the last remaining full-season sponsors on a car — something that was once the norm. Kroger and its various brands do all of AJ Allmendinger’s races and FedEx had 34 races on Denny Hamlin’s car last season (Sport Clips did two), so that’s basically the next-closest thing. But other than that, even many of the biggest sponsors only do half or one-third of the season anymore. That has increased demands on the drivers, because it’s essentially tripled or quadrupled the amount of contractual appearances and promotional work they must do, put a financial strain on the teams to constantly chase new money and made it more difficult for casual fans to follow the racing since the paint schemes change every week.
News value (scale of 1-10): Eight. It’s pretty significant when the seven-time champion and perhaps the greatest driver in history loses his full-season sponsor, especially when it was the longest sponsor/team combination in NASCAR. Though this news alone does not mean NASCAR is in trouble or somehow dying, it should be viewed as a significant point when writing about the sport’s history and recent struggles.
Three questions: Will Hendrick be able to sign another sponsor for the full season, or will Johnson be juggling several companies? What made Lowe’s decide to leave altogether, rather than simply cut back or reduce its involvement? What kind of impact, if any, will this ultimately have on how long Johnson decides to race?
Five thoughts following Sunday’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway…
1. The Game Done Changed
Brad Keselowski sounded the alarm bells last year when he said NASCAR hadn’t let one manufacturer get so far ahead of the others since the 1970s.
He was talking about Toyota, of course. And with only minor rules changes coming into this year and Chevrolet rolling out its slick new Camaro, Keselowski was worried the Fords might “take a drubbing,” as he put it last November.
But after seeing Fords finish sweep the podium at Atlanta and then take six of the top 10 spots Sunday at Las Vegas — including another dominating win by Kevin Harvick — Keselowski said he is feeling differently.
“My initial reaction is — without a full data set — it seems to imply the field has been evened out a little bit,” Keselowski told me as he walked down pit road. “Or at least the balance has been shifted.”
Keselowski believed Harvick’s strong performance at the end of last year was in spite of the Fords not being on an equal playing field (his words) as the Toyotas. But now, he said, “We got to an equal playing field, and he showed to be as strong as he probably should have been last year.”
So what changed? Well, many people have been pointing the finger at the new inspection system (which was initially called “Hawk-Eye” and then “The OSS” and now the “Optical Scanning Station,” but for our purposes we’ll call the “black tent”).
Does most of the credit go to the black tent? Keselowski gave an initial yes, but he cautioned it’s still too early to know for sure.
“We felt all along if the cars were held to the gold standard — which is the submittal (of the car’s specifications that get approved by NASCAR) — then the playing field would be level,” he said. “And we didn’t feel like that was the case last year, which is why we pushed really hard for this system so everyone was racing what they were supposed to be racing.”
2. Big OSS
Along those lines, Harvick noted the rules might not have changed, but the enforcement has. The black tent — “Big OSS,” as SiriusXM host Jim Noble called it — has made for “a totally different interpretation of the rules,” Harvick said.
“There was a lot of things with the splitters last year that some people were doing and people weren’t doing,” he said. “There’s not rules changes per se, the rules were really different and how teams interpret them.”
There’s a common splitter now, which teams all purchase from the same supplier. So that can’t be manipulated in the same way.
Aside from that, the rules haven’t changed much. So it’s sort of fascinating to see how teams approach the big black tent.
As you recall, Martin Truex Jr.’s team failed three times before qualifying at Atlanta. But then the 78 car was one of the first teams to make it through before the Atlanta race inspection.
Similarly, Jimmie Johnson’s team got through pre-qualifying inspection at Las Vegas easily, but then failed three times Sunday morning before the race (which forced them to start in the back and resulted in the ejection of the car chief).
It was quite common in the last couple years for teams to loudly whisper about NASCAR’s laser inspection station being inconsistent. To this day, many swear the LIS would occasionally spit out bogus numbers.
“Last year, there were so many (times) that you’d go through tech and you’d go through with the same car that you didn’t change — and the numbers were different,” team owner Tony Stewart said. “We didn’t change anything on the race cars, and numbers were drastically different.”
But that’s not the case with this new system so far. Teams are getting through easily, and when they don’t, it’s because they’re pushing the limits — not because NASCAR’s equipment is inconsistent.
Just look at Johnson’s team on Sunday. You can’t fault Chad Knaus for trying everything he could to get Johnson some more speed, but you definitely can’t fault NASCAR for enforcing the limits, either.
Rules are rules. As long as officials apply them fairly to everyone, no one should complain.
3. Johnson’s comeback
As the laps wound down in the first stage, Johnson was in serious danger of going two laps down under green — the continuation of a nightmarish streak for his team dating back to last fall.
As it turned out, Johnson and Knaus pulled out some of the magic that made them so special over the years, salvaging a 12th-place finish on a day that initially looked ugly.
Johnson acknowledged he had to change his approach on Sunday and get back to basics.
“At the end of last year and even in Atlanta, I was trying too hard,” he said. “Just giving 100 percent and driving the car where it’s at and bringing it home is what I need to start doing.
“I have been trying to carry it, and I’ve crashed more cars in the last six months than I have really in any six-month stretch or whole year stretch. (I was) just trying to drive it 100 percent and not step over that line.”
It worked, although Johnson indicated Hendrick Motorsports is still behind — and it’s not all just because the new Camaro is in its infancy.
“There is a piece of performance that is familiar from last year, so I think we have some work to do ourselves underneath the body with the chassis and the setup of the car,” he said, referring to an area where Hendrick fell behind in 2017. “… I think the body is definitely helping the car, we’ve just got some other stuff to sort out to go along with it and kind of find the sweet spot for the car, too.”
4. Fords Real, Tho
Part of the Ford boost so far this year has resulted in improved performance for drivers like Paul Menard (ninth at Las Vegas) and Aric Almirola (10th).
Fords are 1-2-3 in the point standings (Harvick-Joey Logano-Ryan Blaney) and eight of the top 13 after the first three races.
“The strength of the Fords has been nice,” Logano said. “Heck yeah. I am excited about it.”
So…are they for real? Though Las Vegas was a good indicator the answer is yes, drivers cautioned to hold off for a few more weeks before making any firm conclusions.
“You take all six races before the (Easter) break to realize (what kind of speed a team has),” Ryan Blaney said. “You come here and it is different than Atlanta. You kind of show your strength here. You kind of see where your short track stuff adds up at Phoenix and then we go to a big two-mile (at Fontana) and you really get an idea there.
“I think when the break comes and that off-weekend comes, you really know where you stack up.”
Kyle Busch said Vegas is indicative of who will run well in the future — but only the immediate future, not the whole year. He pointed to how his team started last season as a top-10 car but eventually improved to a frontrunner by the summer.
“I don’t think it’s a huge telltale, but it’ll obviously give you an idea of who’s going to be tough up through May,” he said.
Keselowski said each race is a data point, and there are only two real data points so far.
“One data point doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “Two data points doesn’t mean everything — but it does mean something.”
5. Stinking up the show?
It didn’t seem like Sunday’s race was the greatest display of NASCAR racing that has ever existed. Clean air was a factor (it even plagued Harvick when he was in traffic) and a single car led 321 of the 400 miles in the race.
But honestly, I’m not sure what NASCAR can do about that. Sometimes a car will just hit on something and kick everyone’s butts — which seems to be the case the last two weeks.
It’s not going to last forever, though. Sure, Harvick might go out and do this again at Phoenix — no one would be surprised if that happened — but it’s not going to be like this all season.
In fact, I don’t even think Harvick is going to pull a Truex and rack up an unfathomable amount of playoff points. One or two gains in speed, and everyone else will be right there with Harvick.
Now, if Harvick is still doing this by the time Texas rolls around? Then yeah, it’s going to be a lonnnnng year for everyone else.
