Johnson, Team Lowe’s, Can’t Catch a Break at Richmond
Saturday evening started out promising for Jimmie Johnson and Team 48 at Richmond International Raceway. Johnson moved up quickly from his 15th-place starting spot but several incidents throughout the race relegated him to a 36th-place finish.
Johnson first experienced a problem just under the midway point of the event when he radioed that he was having brake issues. The team worked to identify the possible source of the problem and when a caution came out the group examined the front brakes, determining they weren’t functioning correctly. The over-the-wall crew worked on fixing the problem over the course of the next few laps and saved Johnson a trip to the garage with its fast and efficient work.
Johnson wouldn’t be so lucky with less than 75 laps to go. An on-track incident involving several cars forced Johnson’s Lowe’s Chevrolet to the garage for extensive work. Once again, the team made many repairs, including installing a new radiator, and were able to get him back out to finish the race.
“We were losing fluid in the left-front brake line, the front master cylinder,” said Johnson. “Once I started losing brake pressure and the pedal was going to the floor, it worked for a few laps until I pushed all the fluid out of it and then I went into Turn 1 and all I had was rear brakes and I spun. At that time, we had to pinch off the left front line and pour fluid back into it, which just gave me the right front tire. And we ran there and unfortunately got caught up in some other stuff and tore up our car.”
“We had a very fast race car, we just had a brake problem.”
Johnson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammates had varying results with Mark Martin (5th) and Jeff Gordon (8th) finishing in the top 10 and Dale Earnhardt Jr. finishing 27th.
Kyle Busch won the race and once again the point standings shuffled. Johnson dropped three spots to sixth place, 151 points behind the leader. The top spot changed as well with Gordon assuming first place followed by Kurt Busch, 10 points back. Tony Stewart (-39), Denny Hamlin (-120) and Kyle Busch (-127) round out the top five.
