Jimmie Johnson Tag

By David Morgan, NASCAR Writer After last Sunday’s barn burner of a finish in the Daytona 500, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series packs up and heads to Georgia for this weekend’s running of the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. As we head to Atlanta, we’ll take a statistical look at the track and which drivers should perform the best based on their past finishes in this edition of “Crunching the Numbers.” Track Facts Track Size: 1.54-mile quad-oval Banking/Turn 1 & 2: 24 degrees Banking/Turn 3 & 4:Read More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief The 58th annual Daytona 500 is in the books and with it a new champion crowned in Denny Hamlin. With ‘The Great American Race’ now over, it’s time to revisit some of the big takeaways from the Sprint Cup season opener. 1) Hendrick Motorsports fell flat Our NASCAR Editor, Toby Christie, pointed out that this was the first time since 2009 that a driver from Hendrick Motorsports has failed to grab a top 10 finish – see that story here. With that said, the performance, orRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor Heading into the 2016 Daytona 500, Hendrick Motorsports seemed like they would over-power the field for the win. As the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series now heads out of Daytona, none of Hendrick’s four drivers are able to boast that they finished inside the top-10 of ‘The Great American Race’. This is the first time since the 2009 edition of this event that all of Hendrick Motorsports’ cars failed to finish inside the top-10. Sunoco Rookie of the Year candidate, and Saturday’s XFINITY Series race winner, Chase ElliottRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – It was a noon practice on the day of the Can-Am Duels at Daytona International Speedway, and there was six-time champion Jimmie Johnson, doing his thing. The regular routine for Johnson and No. 48 crew chief Chad Knaus is a succession of single-car runs at Daytona, staying out of the draft and out of trouble, looking for speed. Based on Thursday’s practice, Johnson may be poised to add a third Daytona 500 title to his resume. The six-time NASCAR SprintRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Saturday’s Sprint Unlimited at Daytona International Speedway ended with a mere handful of cars undamaged—and race winner Denny Hamlin’s Toyota wasn’t one of them. But Hamlin got his wreck out of the way early in a two-car incident with Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s Ford on Lap 13 and won the race in overtime with a large swatch of silver tape on the right side of his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Camry. Hamlin triumphed in the season-opening non-points event for theRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor Sometimes crew chiefs don’t get their full due in the sport of NASCAR. That wasnt the case Friday at Daytona International Speedway as crew chiefs were at the forefront of how the grid for Saturday night’s Sprint Unlimited was decided. The exhibition event’s starting lineup was decided by a random draw from the crew chiefs of the teams eligible to compete. Chad Knaus, Jimmie Johnson’s crew chief, nabbed the pole position for the race. Johnson has won at Daytona three times in his NASCAR SprintRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief The 2016 NASCAR season is upon us and that means a fresh start for the drivers and teams, hope for their fans, and a set of bold predictions on how it will all play out. With our new NASCAR guy, Toby Christie, putting out his bold picks for the new season, it only seemed right that I try to restore balance on what has been predicted. Daytona 500 champion: Jimmie Johnson Johnson has two wins (2006, ’13) in “The Great American Race” and has formed aRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor We are less than 20 days away from the official start of the 2016 NASCAR season. For the next ten months battles will be waged on short tracks, big tracks and tracks that have right handed turns mixed in. Around every turn a storyline will develop, and a new headline will be etched into everyone’s mind. But we’re still days away from the spawning of the 2016 season. Right now my job is to predict exactly what will happen in the 2016 season. Chances are I willRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Can Hendrick Motorsports really be better without Jeff Gordon? From a global perspective, to suggest such a thing would be pure heresy. But from a year-over-year performance perspective, it’s well within the realm of possibility that the 2016 version of Hendrick Motorsports could outshine the 2015 edition, even with rookie Chase Elliott taking Gordon’s place behind the wheel of the No. 24 Chevrolet. In fact, team owner Rick Hendrick said as much. Even though Gordon advanced to the Championship Round of the Chase andRead More

By Jimmie Johnson, NASCAR Wire Service I feel very fortunate to have been a fan of Jeff Gordon from the very beginning. He was somebody that I aspired to be. I watched him from his Midget and Sprint Car days all the way through, and when he hopped in that DuPont 24, it was much easier to follow him. When you look at the doors that he has opened after his success, and owners thinking that drivers don’t have to come from the South or come from stock cars, youRead More