Q&A: Jimmie Johnson, Chad Knaus and Rick Hendrick.

Monday, 20th November 2006

After completing his comeback from the bottom of the Chase for the Championship standings ten weeks ago by taking his first Nextel Cup title, Jimmie Johnson joined crew chief Chad Knaus and team owner Rick Hendrick in a jubilant press conference at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

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Today, all of the things I told myself in the week and all of the things my friends tried to help me with I should say, those things are all true in the car. And outside of the car, I could not accept them and could not get rid of that feeling. As soon as I fired the car off and got on the racetrack I was in a different place. I was calm and kept telling myself, it's just another race. I just was really trying to focus on running 400 miles, running smart, running like I would at any other time. I really just ran a smart race and tried to not think about what was going on; opposite of that 2004 season, I could not shake the nerves and excitement at times when I knew we were in position to win. My stomach was knotted up.

Today I was calm and relaxed. During the red flag, set my head against the headrests, closed my eyes for a little bit, took some deep breaths and got back to it and tried not to focus on what was going to take place.

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