Q&A: Johnson, Grubb, Hendrick

Tuesday, 21st February 2006

After winning NASCAR’s biggest race. Jimmie Johnson, his team boss Rick Hendrick and stand-in crew-chief Darian Grubb sat down to talk about their greatest triumph together to date.

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I just hope that through what took place over this last week, everyone can see what my true intentions are, what this team's intentions are, and how hard we really work to be successful in this sport. You can't deny the fact we won the biggest race, we've worked our butts off to get to this point, and we're very proud to be here.

Q.
You did not put a mark on your racecar, and your peers seem like they hit everything but the Florida lottery out there. How difficult was it not to get caught up in all that aggression?

JIMMIE JOHNSON:
It was tough, believe me. Today was one of the hardest races for me mentally because the racer in me wanted to push and wanted to be aggressive out there. There were so many times I just told myself to stop, "Don't get caught up in this. Sit here on the bottom. Let these guys pass you. You have a good enough racecar, you'll work your way back through here. Pit stops are coming up here, you'll have a great pit stop. Once again, come out towards the front." So I really did a lot of talking to myself, learned some lessons today.

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Ultimately, I hope that I learned something today that will help me win a championship. In my eyes, I wonder if I've been trying too hard, this team's been trying too hard. If we just sit down, be calm and relaxed, do our job a hundred percent, not at 105, 110, if we do our job at 100%, that we will accomplish what we want to, and that maybe at 110% that we've been making mistakes along the way.

Q.
You said that your team overcame so much this week. Can you elaborate on that? Are you talking about not having Chad here or are you just talking about people sniggering or saying things behind your back, saying things, bother you, affect you?

JIMMIE JOHNSON:
I'd say all of the above. From the negative press that comes with it, you know, Rick and I both, Lowe's as well, we don't, none of us want these things to pop up and be associated with what we're doing, what we've accomplished.