NASCAR Nextel Cup Series: Centurion Boats at the Glen

Topics:  Centurion Boats at the Glen

Jimmie Johnson
August 12, 2007

WATKINS GLEN, NEW YORK

THE MODERATOR: In the media center, those that are upstairs, we have our first driver in here. If you want to talk to Jimmie Johnson, our third place finisher, driver of the No. 48 Lowe's Chevrolet, please come down. We're going to go ahead and get started with Jimmie.
Jimmie, take us through that race. A lot of twists and turns, a lot of drama, your thoughts.
JIMMIE JOHNSON: It's certainly a solid day for the Lowe's team. We were pretty nervous a couple of times with the fuel strategy. I don't think we got the best mileage, but we still needed a lot of those cautions and fortunately we got them because we couldn't afford to not be on the same strategy as everybody we were racing with for the lead.
So to get through that and have the strategy kind of work out for us and not have it be a fuel (indiscernible) on top of that, it had a competitive car and tried to stay smart throughout the day and at the end had something to race with and got in some positions on my own and guys made some mistakes late to help get us into the Top 3.

Q. You had the incident with Juan, how much does it mean to come back from that and get a Top 3 after the some of the bad luck you had in July and August so far?
JIMMIE JOHNSON: Yeah, it is nice to come back. I have to admit, when he dumped me, I was furious. Here we are minding our business, running along out there, and the guy never gets inside of me and just runs me over to get position. And it's unfortunate they get his chance to run well on this road course and takes advantage of it and starts laying the bumper to everybody.
We've got a long season left and next week we'll see him on the track but it's just frustrating to be smart all day long, have somebody run you over from behind, and luckily we recovered from that.

Q. Just your take on so many guys, unforced errors, is that a product of the new cars and the level of difficulty of driving them?
JIMMIE JOHNSON: I think it's a couple of things. That might be part of it. And it probably does put more cars up front and capable of running for the win, so I do agree with that. But I think a lot of drivers and a lot of teams have been working hard on the road course races, racing, in general, I should say, and you've got a lot of good drivers and a lot of good teams. We're all running the same speed so when you see a small bubble from someone, you've got to pounce on it. When you have fresh tires or cold brakes, you've got to make the move to get in position, and I think that's just because the level of competition is getting closer and closer between the Top 10.