NASCAR was not on the network television stations like it is now. I went to Riverside once when I was young, actually watched Mr. Hendrick drive, walked all the way around the track, hung out around the fence and eight hot dogs as kids do. It seems so far away, in southern California, I watched Rick Mears, Bobby Gordon with Indy cars. With Chevrolet's guidance my career started to develop and they were pulling out of IndyCar, and at that point, I thought, wow, I'm going to go into stock car racing but I still didn't realize I had eight years ahead of me still, maybe nine years, before I found my way to where we are today.
So it's just been a long road, and I'm a realist and I have high hopes, but I just didn't really think that I could get this car from where I came from. It's just such a long, long road, and it's been a lot of people that believed in me. Just looking back on this, celebrating and moving forward, I'm going to continue to thank and remembering names, it's been a long, long road and a lot of people have believed in me and given me this chance.
Q:
At one point, you said something, you knew this was never going to go smoothly for you guys, you had the hole in the radiator, and you and Chad, I heard you guys on the radio back and forth with each other but the process of trying to stay calm?
JJ:
Yeah, I just casually mentioned it, I wanted somebody to look at the balance and make sure we didn't knock the balance off the car, I'm not sure if it was a spring rubber or what it was, but it was something dense. That was the start of it and we had the little error on pit road with the lug nut and then the two tire stuff that was going on made life tough as well and finally again, whatever the 17 does, we're going to do the same. Because it was so tough and draining to try to figure out what to really do at that point.
![Jimmie Johnson's 2006 championship winning team. [Pic Credit image.net]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/281326.jpg)
