|
Pivotal meeting set
the stage for the No.
48 team's Cup titles
BY DAVID POOL
McClatchy Newspapers
The best way to truly appreciate all of
what Jimmie Johnson and his team have
done over the past three years is to understand
how close they came to doing none
of it.
It's true that Johnson, crew chief Chad
Knaus and team owner Rick Hendrick have
become regulars at the head table at the Sprint
Cup awards ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria in
midtown Manhattan. Nobody else has had those
seats since Tony Stewart, Greg Zipadelli and Joe
Gibbs were there in 2005.
It was right about the time of the '05 ceremony
that Hendrick found himself presiding
over the infamous "milk and cookies" meeting,
which he figured would mark the end of the
Johnson-Knaus pairing and not the beginning of
a historic run of success.
But even that turnaround was no panacea.
In 2006, Johnson was 156 points out of the
lead in the Chase for the Cup with just six races
to go before rallying to finally win his first title.
Last year, he trailed teammate Gordon by 68
points at the halfway point of the 10-race playoff.
This year, he got off to an uncharacteristically
slow start and was so far off in the season's
third race at Las Vegas the team basically tested
everything it could every time it could
until, finally, sometime during the
summer Johnson and Knaus felt like
they could compete at a level that
would let them sleep at night.
Each of Johnson's three straight
titles came, then, with its own set of
challenges. That fact that they won
them all to match Cale Yarborough's
30-year-old record for consecutive
Cup titles is, rightly, the focus for
this year's awards ceremony.
"It doesn't matter what it is,"
Johnson said. "It doesn't have to
be on the highest levels of
NASCAR or the NFL or the
NBA or whatever it is. A champion
is a champion. You're in a
special club.
"The pressure is the same for
a guy on the short track on
Saturday night for what I've had at
the Sprint Cup level. The stage is
bigger and there's a lot of obvious
differences, but being a champion is
so special and such an elite club, and it
takes passion that we all share together.
And at the end it doesn't matter sport,
gender, nationality, none of that. You have
to have a certain passion to separate yourself
to be a champion."
Despite Johnson's much-discussed reputation
for being "vanilla," passion has never really
been a problem for his team - especially
for the crew chief who now has more consecutive
titles than any crew chief in Cup history.
Knaus has a legendary work ethic that permeates
the character of the No. 48 team, the
core of which has remained intact since they
burst on the scene with three race victories and
a top-five points finish in Johnson's rookie
season in 2002.
Four years in, Johnson had 18 wins and the
team had finished second in points twice. But
another fifth-place points result in 2005 led
to some friction between Johnson and Knaus
and to the meeting Hendrick remembers
well.
"I've been down that road so many
times," said Hendrick, who now has a record
eight Cup titles as a car owner. "Most of the
time when it gets to a point of conflict you
patch it up, but it always erupts again. . I
would have bet money that we couldn't fix it.
|
Driver Jimmie Johnson, left, and crew chief Chad Knaus, right, have won 22 races and
three Sprint Cup titles since finishing fifth in the 2005 season.
|
"It's kind of like why go through another
year and wait until midyear and have it blow up
and then have to fix it. Let's do it now."
But Hendrick tried one last
tactic. He literally served milk
and cookies on kiddie plates
and told Johnson and Knaus if
they wanted to act like children
then that's how they'd
be treated.
It worked.
"These guys really put their
heart on the table and they
talked specifically about what
they didn't like," Hendrick
said. "Instead of holding it in,
they were able to become closer
friends and still respect each
other's professional position in
the team.
"After that meeting I felt
really good, and I think they felt good because
there were a lot of
little things that
they didn't know
|
irritated the other one. They're professional
enough that they fixed it.
"They're both intense and they fit each other
well. They understand each other now and they
almost know what the other guy is thinking
when they're talking. I'm sure both of them
would be successful in their
own right, but I'm convinced
that they're better off, and I
don't think either of the two
would have had the success
they've had together."
Together, Johnson and
Knaus and their brethren on
the No. 48 team have
enjoyed little but success
since that meeting. They've
racked up 22 victories and
three titles since, and as soon
as the award celebrations are
done, the focus turns to
adding to their legacy.
Nobody has won four successive
championships.
Gordon leads all active drivers with four
career titles. He knows the history that's now
within Johnson's reach.
"That, in all reality, is the mark they're really
looking at," Gordon said. "Only one other person
has done it in the history of the sport
with three in a row, and it was a
totally different points system,
a different era, a different
time. To really put yourself
in your own category
and really stand out,
you go four in a row.
"You have your good
years and your bad years. I
think that's the only difference
that I see between me and
Jimmie. He hasn't had a bad year. A bad year to him is finishing fifth in
the points. Those guys have been on an
unbelievable streak that I don't think
anybody can really compare themselves
to. Johnson has been reluctant to
answer questions about his position
in the sport's history, primarily because
he has intentions to make more.
"I'm doing my job," he said. "Against these
guys I'm racing with now I know where I fit in
and how good my team is. . I'm very proud of
that. But as far as the history books and things
like that, it's just not my place to say. On top of
that, I'm 33 (years old) and have a lot of years
left of driving. I think I'll still have more opportunities."
And the more begins tomorrow.
|
|
that doesn't work and a
musical act that seems
awkward and/or out of
place.