Johnson helps Edwards weather the storm
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- As driver after driver seized on the opportunity to criticize Carl Edwards, defending Nextel Cup champion Jimmie Johnson took a different route and offered his colleague a bit of advice.
Johnson sympathized with Edwards, who was taking a verbal beating from his rivals because of an angry confrontation he had with Matt Kenseth that was caught on camera and posted on YouTube.
"I've lived through times like that, usually after some crashes I caused at Talladega, and it just seems like the whole world is coming down on you," Johnson said. "It seems like every comment that comes out about you is worse. So I just told Carl, 'I promise you this is going to get better. It's going to pass, even if you feel like you keep getting kicked while you are down.' "
Johnson has been criticized in the past for his aggressive driving at Talladega, and had to weather a storm created when Dale Earnhardt Jr. called him an "idiot" for starting an early accident that wiped out half the field in a 2005 race.
That opened the flood gates for other drivers, who quickly blamed Johnson for several incidents in that crash-filled race.
Now he sees Edwards going through a similar experience because Edwards was angry with his teammate following the race at Martinsville two weeks ago. Edwards confronted Kenseth, then raised his fist as if to punch him before walking away.
"I know Carl hates that it happened, but he was (mad) and he probably wanted to punch Matt," Johnson said. "In some ways, I sit here and think 'We get criticized for being too vanilla, but now everyone is hammering the guy for letting his emotion show through.'
"It's a total Catch-22 and it's impossible to figure out what everyone wants from us."
Johnson said he watched Edwards and Kenseth interact at driver introductions before Sunday's race at Atlanta and thought he saw the tension between the two thawing a bit.
"It's in their best interest to get past this, and I was trying to get a sense and a feel of them talking at driver intros, and it seemed like they are working through it and trying to put it to bed," Johnson said.
Johnson then went on to beat Edwards to the finish line to score his series-best eighth win of the season and close within 9 points of leader Jeff Gordon.
Johnson's Q&A with AP Auto Racing Writer Jenna Fryer.
Q:Nine points out, how do you feel about tightening it up so much and did you really always believe it was possible?
JJ: I am excited. I can't believe we took such a big bite out of the points, but I always thought we could. I knew it was going to be tough, because it's so hard to get a seven or eight spot spread over him. You can have a good day and have him run 12th, and not gain that many points. So we were getting used to earning five or 10 points on him. To cut that many off in one race, it makes me think that Clint Bowyer is really still a threat."
Q:Come on! Bowyer is 111 points out. Do you honestly believe he can make that up in three races?
JJ: We just took 40-something out of Jeff by winning the race and him finishing seventh. If Clint wins a race and Jeff and I finish in the 20s, then he's right there.
Q:But you guys don't finish in the 20s. Why in the world would anyone believe you all of a sudden are going to have a bad race?
JJ: Flat tires, not pitting at the right time, a crash around you that you can't avoid. Stuff happens."
Q:Everyone is testing at Atlanta this week, but you and Jeff got out of it. How?
JJ: We've been testing and working our guys so much over the last month, we just needed to give the guys a bit of a break. Right now we are more focused on this year than next, and any fine tuning that we could do in person by being there, we just didn't think it was worth it.
Q:So what are you doing instead?
JJ: Channy and I are in New York, the Big Apple. Just hanging out, enjoy the Halloween festivities.
Q:Got big Halloween plans?
JJ: There are a lot of events and parties going on, so we are going to go out and have some fun. I don't have a costume yet. I am going shopping today. But I have a group of about four or five guys, and we are thinking either a Mariachi band or the Harlem Globetrotters. But we kind of waited until the last minute to get it together, so it might be slim pickings.
Q:Hey, you donated your race winnings on Sunday to a relief fund for the California wildfires, and you got a lot of people to match it. How did that turn out?
JJ: Awesome. We raised over $1 million, and as I understand it, the Red Cross has met the budget that they feel they needed just through accepting donations. None of my immediate family was affected, but in watching the coverage of it and seeing how far that fire went and it reaching Malibu and the beach at Dana Point, there's no way it didn't affect people I know. There's just no way it couldn't have. It blows me away."