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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There at the end, I was behind Brian. I worked with Brian throughout the race. Brian was doing a great job. I'm so proud of him and the effort he put up. His driving abilities tonight, he really proved a lot to me. His car was probably the only one that was really loose out there. That thing was dead sideways at times. Vickers was wide open, hanging onto it, driving his butt off trying to win his first Daytona 500. So it was nice to have him up there. Once I think I got to his outside, I saw the outside lane coming, I moved up to block it, and got ahead of him right when the caution came out.

I felt very good having him behind me. But once I was in front of him and dirtied the air up for him, I could see him getting real loose behind me. I kind of felt like Ryan was going to set him up at some point and get underneath him because Brian was real loose up off the corners and couldn't hold it down and that happened. I wish that he could have been up there and we got a one, two finish. Like I said, he did an amazing job tonight.

Q.
Jimmie, you mentioned Jeff and Tony going into the wall. Where were you when the thing happened with Tony and Kenseth? Are you surprised that the guy who had been preaching about driver safety and using your head is the one that sent somebody off into the grass?

JIMMIE JOHNSON:
You know what, I didn't see any of that. I was curious where the 17 went. He was so strong all day. I didn't even see what took place. That's all new to me.

Q.
Jimmie, you said in Victory Lane that your off-road buddy gave you a bit of help at the end. Can you talk about your history with Casey, how he's coming on right now in NASCAR.

JIMMIE JOHNSON:
Casey is one of my closest friends. He actually stood up in my wedding when Channie and I got married. He is a very close friend of mine. Was one of my groomsmen. We started off racing together in the off-road ranks. His dad, Roger Mears, was one of the legends of the off-road series.