Johnson butts in on Busch brothers' act

Friday, Feb. 27, 2009

LAS VEGAS - This is a city where fortunes can change with a roll of the dice or the turn of a card. Nobody understands that better than Jimmie Johnson.

Johnson, the three-time defending Sprint Cup champion, qualified third fastest Friday for the Shelby 427 at a 1.5-mile track where last year he and his No. 48 Chevrolet team got a rude awakening.

After having won the Sprint Cup Series race here in 2005, 2006 and 2007, Johnson qualified 33rd fastest a year ago and never really moved forward.

He finished 29th, two laps down, in a race in which he didn't wreck or have any other kind of mechanical problem. His car just would not go anywhere.

Johnson's qualifying lap at 185.688 mph Friday trailed only Las Vegas natives and brothers Kyle Busch and Kurt Busch.

But while Kyle Busch ran 185.995 mph on his lap to officially win the pole, he lost an engine early Friday and will have to start at the rear of the field in his Toyota. It's the second straight week a Toyota has won the pole but had to change an engine. Brian Vickers did that last week in California.

Still, it's the first time brothers were the fastest qualifiers for a Cup race since Rusty Wallace and Kenny Wallace at Martinsville in April 2000.

That all means that Johnson will move up to the inside of Row 1 for the green flag at a track where last year's race was something he'd just as soon forget.

"It was extremely humbling, and almost embarrassing in some ways," said Johnson, who after the horrible outing had to make a trip along with crew chief Chad Knaus to a sponsor's tent to meet about 3,000 fans.

"Chad and I weren't holding any punches back on the radio and you forget that there were so many people listening," Johnson said. "To walk in and have them recite some of the smart remarks I had for Chad and that he had for me, it was embarrassing on that front. It really helped me recognize and realize who is listening."

But that race marked a turning point, setting off weeks of testing that helped the team find its footing and put down a foundation on which its run to another title was built.

"It was the start of us recognizing that we didn't have the speed on the 1.5-mile tracks," Johnson said. "We admitted we had a problem and we needed to catch up.

"...This race here made us say, 'All right, we've really got something going on and we need to sort it out.' "

Johnson said it took until July before he felt as if he and his team had caught up on this type of track. And if NASCAR's current moratorium on testing had been in place last year, he isn't sure how they'd have dug their way out.

Johnson is 19th in points after two races this year, which is not where he'd like to be. He's got company - two races into the season Kyle Busch is 18th, Mark Martin is 27th, Jeff Burton is 31st and Dale Earnhardt Jr. is 35th.

"I think there is a sense of urgency," said Burton, whose car ran as badly at Auto Club Speedway last weekend as Johnson's did at this track a year ago. "If not, you are not in full understanding of the situation that you are in. ...This is a results-oriented business and we need to put some results down."

Richard Childress Racing sent its Las Vegas cars out west before last week's race, but after the struggles at Fontana team mechanics left North Carolina for Las Vegas a day early this week. They've spent their time in borrowed garage space changing their approach for this race.

"We had to drop back and punt," said Burton, who qualified 14th on Friday.

Elliott Sadler, who will start 33rd, said his team treated Friday's practice as a test session. His Richard Petty Motorsports team was going to take information gleaned back to their hotel Friday evening so they could run computer simulations and try to get better for Saturday's runs.

"It's tough when you get in hole like we are, there's no doubt about it," said Earnhardt, who qualified 31st. "All you can do is go to the track and hope you can make up some ground. You have to string together a lot of good finishes. It's very frustrating.

"You try to find a silver lining in everything. ...You talk to anybody who can give you any kind of positive feedback to boost your confidence. ...I feel pretty comfortable; we just need a little luck.

"...It just seems like I'm not living right. Hopefully, I can get things turned around and get my karma right."

Matt Kenseth, who this week tries to become the first driver to win the season's first three Cup races, ran only 182.143 mph in the No. 17 Ford and will start 40th.

Travis Kvapil, Scott Riggs and Jeremy Mayfield, all of whom had made the first two races, didn't go fast enough to make the field this week. Dave Blaney, Mike Garvey, Sterling Marlin, Tony Raines and Dexter Bean also failed to qualify.

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