Jimmy Johnson Car Quotations

From the first lap, the car was right on the money, and off we went. We had great stops, and it was really what we needed after last week.

Martinsville is a place where contact is going to come into play, and tempers will be high, ... It's a track where you can never get away from a lapped car or the cars you're racing, so the potential is there to have contact.

I think sometimes we hit short tracks and everybody feels that they can be really aggressive and slide the car around. Jeff, he's sharp and knows what to do and how to make the car last.

That was so much fun. I knew if I could get to his outside and get around him I knew the car was going to drive good. I just didn't want to push the issue. Then they had that green-white-checker at the end.

My car has been driving great all day long, I drove a smooth hard lap and everything worked out.

That was a pretty strong lap, ... In practice the car was a little looser. I hit all the same points and did all the same things but we just couldn't get it.

We had a top ten car throughout the day,

We actually have just as many changes to our car as Ford has for theirs.

We had a perfect car through (pre-race) tech you look at other cars, there are other people doing other things

Yes, a little bit because you really have to recognize when you are being abusive to the car and as a result to the tires.

That's more stock car country out there, ... There were a lot more people there than the store expected, but I wasn't really surprised. Word of mouth is a powerful tool in stock car racing.

I really feel this championship is about not losing it. Tony (Stewart) had the dominant car tonight. If it didn't get out from underneath him, he probably would have won the race, and it would be a different story. We've just got to do our job and not make any more mistakes - especially on my part - and not tear the car up or do anything stupid.

I just really slowed down the pace of the race in my eyes from what I was doing, made sure that I made smart moves that wouldn't have hung me out of the draft. I didn't try as hard to be the guy that led the most laps, made the most aggressive moves. I worked on the handling of our race car so at the end of the race we had the best driving car.

Before long, there will be a couple car breakaway and some gaps from there. That's when the pressure really sets in and you've got to decide if you're protecting the points lead or if you need to play some offense and be aggressive and lead the most laps and really take some risks.

It really is a tough track for us. The entries to the corner have really given me some problems. We just can't get our car into the corner right. The transition is pretty abrupt.

For somebody who says it doesn't bother him, evidently it has. Indirectly, I guess, something's gotten to him, ... That's his deal and he's spending some time thinking about it. Last week, the reason we went out to follow him in practice was out of respect for him. He had the best car and we wanted to see how we stood up next to him. And we passed him.