Catchfence

Jimmie Johnson will pilot the No. 48 Kobalt Tools Impala SS around Las Vegas Motor Speedway Sunday, the first 1.5-mile track the team will visit this season.

Last March, Johnson finished 29^th at Las Vegas. But despite an engine problem that ended in a 39^th-place result at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, Johnson had an average finish of 12.4 on 1.5-mile tracks by the end of the year.

In Sunday’s race, Team Lowe’s Racing will debut a brand new chassis and hopes to start the season’s mile-and-a-half competition with a solid top 10 finish.

JIMMIE JOHNSON QUOTES:

YOU GO TO VEGAS THIS WEEK, YOUR FIRST 1.5-MILE TRACK. IS IT A PRETTY GOOD BAROMETER ON HOW YOUR 1.5-MILE PROGRAM IS GOING TO BE FOR THE WHOLE YEAR? “I think it is. I think that you know where we need a little bit of work and help on is the high-banked 1.5-mile tracks and Vegas is kind of in that middle stage. Flat tracks like we showed here last fall, big flat tracks we’ve got a great set up. It’s more the Charlotte, Atlanta, Texas-style tracks. So I think Atlanta will be a good yardstick for the No. 48 car. Texas is pretty early if I remember right. Those two tracks in particular are the ones that I feel we need to get better at. If I look at Chicago, we got beat there on the last lap but it was on a restart and I went up and took the lead from the No. 18 so I feel really good about the Vegas, Kansas, Chicago-style tracks. It’s just the ones with more banking that we need a little bit more work.”

DUE TO THE LACK OF TESTING, WILL THE SAME TEAMS CONTINUE TO BE ON TOP OR WILL THERE BE SOME SURPRISES?  “I really think you have to go back to the conclusion of last season and look at the way everybody was running on certain types of tracks and start there. I don’t know how much we can all learn without testing. It’s going to be a great test to the engineers and the seven-post rigs and all that stuff that we all own and use, but we’re always able to go to the track and validate it and see if that stuff has worked or not. So, in my mind, I look at who was strong at these tracks last year.”

RACE NOTES

Las Vegas Motor Speedway

• Johnson has made seven Cup Series starts at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, posting three wins, three top-five and four top-10 finishes.
• Johnson has completed 99.9% (1870 of 1872) of competition laps at the 1.5-mile track and has led 210.
• Johnson has an average start and finish of 16.4 and 9.3.

 Chassis

• Johnson will pilot a brand new chassis, No. 534, in Sunday’s race.
• The backup chassis, No. 465, was last driven to a 17^th-place finish at Michigan International Speedway in August 2008.

SPRINT CUP SERIES CAREER NOTES

Career Wins

• Johnson has 40 wins in his Sprint Cup Series career, his most recent coming at Phoenix International Raceway on Nov. 9.
• The El Cajon, Calif.-native is 15^th on NASCAR’s all-time wins list.
• He also has the third-highest win total among active drivers, behind Jeff Gordon (81) and Bill Elliott (44).
• Johnson has won at least three Cup races a season since he posted his first victory in 2002. He is the only driver in the modern era to win at least three races in each of his first seven full-time seasons.
• Johnson has won Sprint Cup Series races at all but six (Bristol, Michigan, Infineon, Chicago, Watkins Glen, Homestead) of the 22 tracks on which the series competes.
• Johnson’s 10 wins in 2007 was the highest number recorded in a single season since Jeff Gordon posted 13 victories in 1998.
• The four-consecutive wins scored by the No. 48 team in the 2007 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup ties a modern-era NASCAR record.

 Career Poles

• Johnson has collected 19 poles in his Sprint Cup career.
• The championship driver has earned at least one pole a year since his first full-time season in 2002.
• He had a career-high six poles in 2008.
• Johnson’s most recent pole position was in the Nov.  9 event at Phoenix International Raceway. 

 Career Starts

• Johnson has finished in the top five in the Sprint Cup Series point standings each year since his first full season in 2002.
• Johnson is one of only two drivers to qualify for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup every year since the format was adopted in 2004. Matt Kenseth is the other.
• In 257 Sprint Cup Series starts, Johnson has posted 101 top five and 157 top-10 finishes.
• He has a top-five finish at every track on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series circuit.
• Johnson has led a total of 7,517 laps (of 73,914) in his Sprint Cup career, covering over 99,251 miles.
• He has finished on the lead lap 198 times.

GMR Live Marketing For Team Lowe’s Racing, Press Release