Junior Dominates the news at Dover, Johnson Dominates the Race.
By” Drew Hierwarter
The big story of the weekend was the Dale Earnhardt, Jr crew chief change, but the big performer of the weekend was the 48 team led by Chad Knaus and Jimmie Johnson.
The long rumored change in crew chiefs for the Rick Hendrick owned 88 team finally happened and it was the talk of the weekend’s TV shows. Dale Earnhardt, Jr.’s cousin and long time crew chief Tony Eury, Jr. was off the pit box, replaced by a team of Hendrick heavyweights led by Lance McGrew. The result had the car running as high as third during the race and then ending with a 12th place finish, which may not seem great for some but is a big improvement for a team that has been struggling as much as they have.
But it’s very possible that merely changing crew chiefs wasn’t the entire solution. There is evidence that a lack of communication was a big factor in the poor results of the team to this point in the season and this is born out by the fact that boss Rick Hendrick was paying extra attention to how things were going.
Hendrick was quoted as saying he; “listened to them all day” on the radio.
“The communication was extremely good, and the feedback [from Earnhardt on how the car was behaving] was really good,” Hendrick continued, “For the guys to work that well together, this quick, I was really pleased.”
When you know the boss is listening, you tend to always be on your best behavior.
The race itself was dominated by another Hendrick team, the 48 driven by Johnson. They led 298 of the 400 laps and staged a thrilling end of the race battle with Tony Stewart. Stewart, whose second place finish vaulted him into the points lead, said “. . . the fastest car won the race.”
The drama was set-up by a rare miscue in the pits by the Chad Knaus led pit crew that put Johnson back out on the track in ninth place with 32 laps to go.
“To have to run that hard,” Johnson said of the end, “and pass that many good cars to get the lead, that was a challenge. I thought I was going to pop the wall there a couple of times. I’m like, ‘Please stick, please!’ And it stuck.”
Johnson passed Tony Stewart just two and half laps from the checkers.
“We had an opportunity,” Stewart said, “we got up to the lead, and just couldn’t hold off Jimmie. He was like a freight train coming. I was surprised I could hold him off as long as I did. I was pretty happy that we were able to do it for that long.”