Like the Man Himself, Jimmie Johnson's Texas Win Was More Substance Than Style

Jimmie Johnson is an owner’s dream, a darling of corporate America and a man who drives many working-class fans stark, raving mad.

After laying waste to the field in Saturday night’s Duck Commander 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, the six-time Sprint Cup champion climbed out of his car and said he wanted to give “a shoutout to all the pros who shop at Lowe’s and to the folks at Lowe’s Pro Services.”

Date	Winner	Car
4/11/15	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet
4/7/14	Joey Logano	Ford
4/13/13	Kyle Busch	Toyota
4/14/12	Greg Biffle	Ford
4/9/11	Matt Kenseth	Ford
4/19/10	Denny Hamlin	Toyota
4/5/09	Jeff Gordon	Chevrolet
4/6/08	Carl Edwards	Ford
4/15/07	Jeff Burton	Chevrolet
4/9/06	Kasey Kahne	Dodge

Then Johnson recited other sponsors, ad nauseum, and in this moment of nationally televised recognition (i.e., free advertising), he made hardly any notable reference to what actually happened in the Texas Motor Speedway race, the season’s seventh and the second won by the dominant driver, but not anywhere near the dominant personality, of his age.

In Johnson’s defense, he’s not a phony. He’s a nice guy. What you see is what you get. He’s probably never going to have his own talk show. He’s probably never going to want one.

Rick Scuteri/Associated Press/Associated Press

Later, in the post-race media conference, Johnson adroitly deflected the snit that runner-up Kevin Harvick was in, though the runner-up’s ire seemed mainly directed at fourth-place finisher Joey Logano.

“I certainly ran the line that [Harvick] wanted, so blocking, sure, you can call it whatever it is,” Johnson said. “There were numerous times earlier in the race that I just pulled down and let him go and didn't run his line, but for a race win, I'm going to run whatever line I need to try to win the race.

“It's unfortunate that he's upset like that, but when it comes time to win a race, you've got to do what you've got to do.”

In a costly, sponsor-driven sport, where pleasing the companies that pay for the rolling billboards is almost as important as taking the checkered flag, Johnson is a master. He wins with cold efficiency. He speaks into microphones the same way.

But he’s too perfect for mass consumption. It’s not his fault. He is the product of a corporate-friendly system that produces champions deathly afraid they might one day say something interesting.

Johnson used track position and the obligatory debris slowdowns to gain an edge he didn’t relinquish to Harvick, the reigning champion and the other Chevy driver with two victories to date. He was in a perfect position to take advantage of the way the final stages of the race wound down. It is a great talent of his.

“I think the tracks with high wear, bumps, all those types of things, have just always been a good surface for the 48,” Johnson said. “You go through the older race tracks, [and] I think you can see some type of...there's some statistics there that would support my thought that we just do better on those kinds of tracks.”

Reinhold Matay/Associated Press

He led 128 laps. Harvick led 96. There were 110 others, few of them very important, for other drivers to lead. Harvick has finished either first or second in six of the seven races. Johnson’s won twice, but otherwise, he’s just been finding the range and honing in his sights. He’s had only one crew chief in his career, and Chad Knaus is his parallel match in ruthless and unyielding efficiency.

“I had a lot of confidence coming into Texas based off of where we had been in Fontana, where we were in Las Vegas and where we were in Atlanta,” Knaus said. “I felt like we were going to be OK. ... Our intermediate program, again, it's probably as good as it's been in the last year. We're making huge, huge gains, but we need to be a lot better yet.”

Comforting, isn’t it?

At 39, Johnson has learned all the lessons of NASCAR’s charm school. He never makes a wrong move and never says the wrong thing. He’s so slick, he gets no traction.

Chuck Burton/Associated Press

It doesn’t have to be that way. It’s possible to balance the commercial demands with the need to captivate an audience not comprised mostly of men in suits. Take, for instance, the way that Clint Bowyer, on Friday at a sponsor announcement, managed to balance the pairing of Maxwell House coffee with Five-Hour Energy Drink.

“That's the question,” opined Bowyer, probably thinking to himself, hey, I got this. “How can both these companies be together on one race car? It's really simple.

“This very morning was a prime example of how it works in my lifestyle. Our six-month-old, Cash, was screaming literally about every 45 minutes in the motor home, and I only have 40 feet in that motor home. You can't go any farther.

“The rental car outside is the next closest step to getting sleep. Certainly waking up this morning and brewing a fresh pot of Maxwell House coffee to get the day started is paramount to having a six-month-old and everyday life. Before I get in that race car, you need to be alert, you need to be focused and energized, and certainly, you need to be fast, so a Five-Hour Energy shot is what it is for me."

Thus far, in the season to date, Bowyer has one noteworthy finish, a seventh in the Daytona 500.

One of Johnson’s three Hendrick teammates, the wildly popular Dale Earnhardt Jr., finished third.

“We go to Bristol next,” Earnhardt said in his post-race media conference, “so I guess that's a better opportunity for me because my name is not Jimmie and my name ain't Kevin.”

Johnson and Harvick have cast something of a damper over other drivers and teams that do not have the edge that Hendrick shares with Stewart-Haas Racing.

"Stats don't lie, and the stats say that those guys...[are] going to be capable of winning right now,” said 11^th-place Denny Hamlin afterward in remarks disseminated by Toyota. “To be realistic, we need stuff to go our way. We need cautions and track position. We just can't drive through the field like that—what those guys are capable of—and we're a work in progress.

“From ideas to design to on the race track is six months, and sometimes it's a year, and I'm confident, though, that by the time we get to the Chase, we're going to have something that's capable of running with those guys. We don't right now."

Johnson, Knaus and Co. don’t plan on slowing down.

The six-time champ and 72-race winner is a dazzling brand, but what the sport craves is a champion with whom fans who are imperfect can relate.

All quotes are taken from NASCAR media, team and manufacturer sources unless otherwise noted.