Johnson keeps his focus on prize that matters most
There were times, despite the tremendous success he's enjoyed in his career, when Jimmie Johnson wondered if he was missing out on something. He saw all his counterparts on NASCAR's premier series who moonlighted on the Nationwide tour. He watched as many of his fellow drivers started up racing operations ranging from sprint cars to Sprint Cup. And he asked himself if he needed to be doing the same thing.
These days, the answer to that question is obvious. Johnson starts Sunday's race at Texas Motor Speedway with a 184-point lead on the field, and a real chance to wrap up his fourth consecutive championship a week before the season ends. Throughout his record-breaking run, every aspect of his ascendancy has been scrutinized—his workout routine, his driving style, his demeanor, his relationship with crew chief Chad Knaus. And yet, there's another potential factor that's gone completely overlooked.
Certainly, much of Johnson's success is due to what he's done. But some of it may also be the result of what he doesn't do. He doesn't compete in the Nationwide Series. He doesn't own race teams. Every molecule of his being is focused on one thing, on winning the Cup championship, something he's proven better at than any other driver of his era. There are no extracurricular activities. There are no shortened debriefs on Saturdays because he has to go jump in a Nationwide car. There are no hiring, firing, or sponsorship-finding headaches. There is nothing to pull his attention away from his primary goal. Johnson does two things—drive and win. And he does them so well, so effortlessly, they seem as involuntary as a heartbeat.
When Johnson first arrived on NASCAR's premier circuit seven years ago, teammate and co-car owner Jeff Gordon gave his protégé some advice: the key to success is avoiding distraction. Gordon hasn't run a Nationwide-level race since 2000, and his car ownership at Hendrick Motorsports does not include any day-to-day management duties. Clearly, Johnson took his mentor's words to heart.
"I think that [it's about] really being focused on your team, where it really matters, which is in the Cup Series," Gordon said. "Every guy in this garage area wants a championship. They want to win races at this level and win a championship. What can you do to give your team the best effort and information to go out and do that consistently? And Jimmie does a great job at it. He's very focused, and works very hard at it, and the results speak for themselves."
The results are staggering, actually, given all the greats that have tried and failed to win three consecutive championships—drivers like Gordon, Dale Earnhardt, Richard Petty and Darrell Waltrip—and that only one man, Cale Yarborough, has made a previous run at four in a row. It's not like Johnson hasn't explored diversifying his racing interests; he competed in four Nationwide events as recently as last year, and has been presented with ownership opportunities ranging from motocross, rally, and off-road to NASCAR's national divisions. In each case, he's passed. The interest on his part has never really been there.
"I don't want to enter into a business relationship or into another part of my professional career in an area that I don't have a lot of knowledge in. I'm finally good at something. Why dilute that? Why start doing a lot of other things, do it half-assed?" Johnson asked.
"I'm not saying in the future those opportunities wouldn't be more appealing if I wasn't driving a car. But just right now, man, I'm finally good at something. It's taken me 34 years to get to this point. I don't want to dilute it. I like having a little extra free time, spending time with my family, my wife, traveling a little bit, keeping some available kind of mental space so that when I get in the Cup car, I'm not irritated, whatever it may be.
"I think it kind of helps with the whole mindset I have, as well. I have plenty to do, but I'm not so overworked that I just have a short fuse and things frustrate me, that kind of thing. So I do also have three, hopefully four years of proving to myself that this formula is working really well, and to not change anything. So all those things kind of add up."
Don't let that talk about travel and free time fool you. Johnson is a notorious early riser who works very hard at his job. Teammate Mark Martin, who knows a little something about effort, said Johnson works harder than any other driver he's ever been around. But because Johnson makes it look so easy, Martin didn't realize it until he landed at Hendrick.
"He works harder than anyone that I have seen from studying this sport, to making notes after every race, to reviewing notes before, to nutrition, to physical fitness, to commitment to the sport," Martin said. "It has been surprising to me. I was one of those, like many others from the outside looking in, looking at Jimmie Johnson making it look easy thinking he was a lucky guy that drove for a great race team. I'm taking that back now. I've seen different, and I'm one of the guys that is standing up saying, hey, he's not getting enough credit."
Is it a coincidence that the top six drivers in the Cup standings this season have all of six Nationwide starts between them—including none by Johnson—while several in the bottom half of the Chase, and many who missed the playoff, are much more heavily invested in the second-tier series? It can be difficult to draw a correlation between Nationwide involvement and Sprint Cup success; as recently as last season, Carl Edwards had a chance to win both titles in the same year. But Johnson's involvement is sparing, if at all. And he's the one driver nobody has been able to catch for nearly four years now.
"That's not a leap," Edwards conceded. "I've thought about that. No, I don't think so. Here's how it works: You're winning, you're doing well, everybody looks at everything you're doing and says, man, that's what you have to do to win, right? That's it. If you're not winning, they look at everything you're doing and say, ah, he's distracted. When Tony Stewart does well, that guy owns one of everything and does everything. When he's running well they say, that's what it takes. I think it's cool, though, that you have all different guys. Jimmie does his thing the way he does it. I live in Missouri, and last year that's what everybody says you have to do, you have to move away. Tony does his things, guys have ownership in teams, and all of us are able to be successful at times with it. Obviously not to Jimmie's level."
That's the catch. Edwards does have a valid point—when Stewart won his second title in 2005, much was made over the relative serenity he had found by moving back home to Columbus, Ind. And Stewart has established himself as a perennial championship contender despite his penchant for racing anything, anytime, and car ownership that has gradually expanded from the U.S. Auto Club to NASCAR's upper levels.
But not even Stewart has been able to approach Johnson's feats of the past four seasons, a stretch that has rewritten NASCAR history. Even Edwards, who is running the full Nationwide schedule this season in addition to his Cup duties, will admit that Johnson's success has made him reconsider doing both. "Oh yeah. I've thought about it," he said. "With this Nationwide thing, that's the guy I look at. Him and Jeff in particular, those guys, they run the Cup races and that's it, and they're successful. But I look at it in the vein of, it won't diminish my success."
These days, though, it doesn't necessarily help, either. When Edwards first broke into Cup racing, he felt his Nationwide involvement helped him progress two years for every one he competed in. But the cars are now vastly different, and very little translates from one side to the other. Johnson has run a total of 10 Nationwide events throughout the course of his four-year championship reign.
"Bottom line, you want to know why those guys are running Nationwide races? For money," Gordon said. "They're wanting extra money. The sponsors are there supporting the car owners to run the series, and those guys are able to make extra money. That's why they run it. And somebody like Kyle [Busch], who has an opportunity to win a championship, or Carl, hey, why not do that, too?
"But the Cup drivers that are over there, that's why they're doing it. Jimmie is a well-paid driver, and I think that he sees the benefits of not being over there. I don't know if he looked at the way I did it or not, and he still runs sometimes, but these days those cars are so much different. Maybe next year when they go to that new car, whenever they go to the new car, when the cars are more similar, maybe you'll see it benefitting more guys on Sundays."
Right now, though, that doesn't appear to be the case. The Nationwide tour and the ownership ranks continue to swell with Cup drivers whose passion for the sport has led them to explore competitive options beyond Sunday afternoons. And meanwhile Johnson continues to sharpen his focus, and keep his eyes on the one prize that matters most.
The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.
