Could be FT18,
Here is the entire article, from Mike Mulhern. He may be well coached but I detect an air that would do any veteran proud. IMHO, this kid and his ROTY rival Ryan are something special.
DARLINGTON, S.C.
Jimmie Johnson will take his surprising Winston Cup championship bid to Darlington Raceway, the oldest track on the NASCAR tour, and he's carrying a little chip on his shoulder this week after last Saturday night's Howling-at-the-Moon 500 at Bristol.
"I haven't been any madder in my whole life," Johnson said of his run-in with Robby Gordon. "Racing for the Winston Cup championship in your rookie season, and to have something like that happen, that was uncalled for, and was not even at speed in the race...."
Gordon and Johnson, NASCAR's two most famous Baja off-road racers, were down a lap at Bristol and trying to catch up when they got into a bumping duel on a restart. Gordon, one lap down, said that Johnson, two laps down, should have showed him the courtesy of letting him around for the restart. So Gordon, under the yellow, popped Johnson several times to tell him to move over.
Johnson didn't, and on the restart, Johnson was slow to get up to speed. Gordon hit Johnson hard and raised his rear wheels off the ground. Johnson spun into Mark Martin, damaging both cars of the two title contenders.
That incident dropped Johnson back to fifth in the standings, 145 points behind after his 34th place finish.
And he's still angry. But he said he'll just put it in the back of his mind and go on.
"It's behind me, it's done, there's nothing I can do about it, and the points are gone," Johnson said.
"We don't need to be out there tearing up racecars, making our sponsors look bad, making our teams look bad, and making the crews work any harder than they already do. You've just got to get over it and be a professional about it."
And the post-incident histrionics? Johnson, Ward Burton, Hut Stricklin and Elliott Sadler all did more than just walk quietly to the ambulance.
"I don't believe I handled my situation in a professional manner," Johnson said. "And if I could take it back, I would. I don't need to be out there acting the way I did, representing Lowe's and all the sponsors and Hendrick Motorsports.
"I'm ashamed it happened. But I can't take it back. Everybody has been extremely understanding in realizing the emotions. But it's something I won't do again in the future. I'm a professional and need to be acting like a professional, and not out there making obscene gestures."
NASCAR officials are expected to make that clear to everyone involved in Saturday's incident.
"I don't think they like drivers running out on the racetrack and throwing things and being in the situation of being injured, hit by a vehicle," Johnson said.
"It does make good TV. When I had my incident, I heard the fans screaming over the racecars. In some ways, it makes for good TV, seeing some of the emotions of the drivers. But I think NASCAR will get involved if someone is getting in the position of getting hit and injured."
The level of tension during the 31/2 -hour race approaches that at Talladega, Johnson said: "It is tight quarters ... but that's why they have a five-year waiting list for tickets. It's part of NASCAR. You have the same frustration at Bristol as you do at Talladega running in those 43-car packs."
So what was Johnson thinking during that critical restart which led to the incident that cost him at least 60 points, possibly close to 100 - enough to be the turning point, for the worst, in his title bid?
"We were coming around for the restart and Robby wanted to start as the first car in the lap-down lane," Johnson said. "But I had raced my way to that point, and I was trying to get back one of my laps. That would have put me just one lap down, and I could have had the possibility of finishing in the top 15.
"So I was staying on the point. I was on the inside coming to the start-finish line, and if I beat Mike Wallace (the leader at that point) to the line I would have been black-flagged. So I was waiting for Mike to accelerate. When he took off, I was trying to take off, but Robby was already in the back of me and had my rear tires off the ground, so I couldn't accelerate. And he turned me and spun me out in front of the pack.
"I was very animated, and I'm disappointed in myself for handling things the way I did. But with so much on the line, contending for the championship, my emotions got the best of me."
So when is a bump over the line at Bristol?
"You race people the way they race you," Johnson said. "And if somebody moves you out of the way, or if he chops you, or really blocks you, you remember that stuff.
"But when you're bending sheet metal and tearing up racecars, that's obviously too far."
So what's tolerable at Darlington?
"At Darlington you really have to race the racetrack," Johnson said. "If you're caught up in battling with someone, or charging too hard, that track will bite you and destroy your racecar. At either end there's something that can happen.
"It's one of those few places where you try to block out who's around you, who's coming in your mirror, and who's racing in front of you, and focus on your racecar and racing that track for your conditions. As soon as you relax, you'll slip up just a foot in one and two, and you're already running up along the wall, so you'll brush the wall and take yourself out of contention.
"It can be a vicious track. So you try to put your emotions away and run your own independent race."
As a kid growing up in Southern California, Johnson didn't have the Southern 500 as even a blip on his radar screen.
"NASCAR racing wasn't really that big," Johnson said. "I wasn't able to follow a lot of the sport. I would go to Riverside and Phoenix with my dad, and if we could catch it on television we would. So I wasn't real familiar with it until I got into stock-car racing and started traveling around. I think the spring race was the first one I saw, when the backstretch was the frontstretch, and I thought it was the oddest thing to watch those guys sailing off into one and run along the wall. I thought it was the most challenging thing I'd ever seen. So I thought it was a cool track, once I got involved with it and started watching some of the classic Darlington races. I guess I'm learning my history now."
And he could be adding to that history this weekend. He has proven to be a fast learner: in the spring he qualified fifth at Darlington and finished sixth in his first Winston Cup race at the odd-shaped track.
But that was just the fifth race of the year, and now Johnson is in the heat of a championship race.
"I know how you can rattle other drivers," Johnsonsaid. "You can stay in their mirror so much wearing them out that you force them into making a mistake. You can get them frustrated. There are a variety of emotions that go on. And you can tell when you get behind a Jeff Gordon or a Dale Jarrett that none of those mental games are going to work on those guys."
