Jimmie Johnson Sets The Standard For Other Drivers
By Cole Mentzel
Jimmie Johnson has had a few difficult disputes come to him in the past few weekends of NASCAR racing. Whether it was Kevin Harvick trying to fight him after a race or being eliminated in the first round of the Chase, the sport hasn’t been so kind to the 6-time champ.
However, he has handled all of it with class, something that other NASCAR drivers struggle with from time to time. He ability to stay calm and not engage when confronted is one of the reasons why he is so highly respected in the sport today.
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After the first race of the Chase at Chicagoland, he was confronted by Kevin Harvick, who had a right to be mad. During a re-start in the race, Johnson had went down on the apron and when he attempted to come back up, he connected with one of Harvick’s tires, which ultimately led to him smoking and spinning a few laps later.
Harvick came out of his trailer and said a few things to Johnson who stood and listened. Eventually, Harvick tried to get closer and put a fist to Johnson’s chest. At that moment, we could’ve seen another episode of a Chase fight like in 2014, but Johnson remained calm and began to walk away shaking his head. When approached by a NASCAR official, he simply waived his hand letting him know that he wasn’t about to get involved in the situation.
His calm and composure was something that you don’t see often from NASCAR drivers at a time like the Chase, not to mention that fact that it was in a secluded area with a few people around.
Later on in the first round at Dover, Johnson had car trouble which forced him to go behind the wall and eventually led to his elimination in the first round. Afterwards, he took to Twitter to read some tweets from users who weren’t exactly happy and his responses were not harsh. In other cases with athletes and Twitter, we’ve seen things get out of hand that causes the tweet to be deleted and creates a big story, but there was nothing like that here.
You're right young lady, we are outta the chase. https://t.co/IgN5XMRX5R
— Jimmie Johnson (@JimmieJohnson) October 5, 2015
His responses to both of these events should have other drivers watching. Instead of reacting with fists or fighting words, it’s easy to reply in a dignified manner that sheds a good light on the driver and the sport itself.
One other driver that is great with these types of situations is Carl Edwards. In most of his quotes after races or after wrecks, he is the first to take the blame for action and doesn’t create tension between himself and other drivers. You never really see him involved in any situations with others.
The bottom line here is that, though conflict sometimes increases the intensity in the sport, it is easy to stay calm and help leave some of the negative generalizations in the past.
Jimmie Johnson is arguably the greatest driver of the past decade and his class in certain situations is something that NASCAR should be proud of. If there’s another driver out there who wants to earn some respect, all he needs to do is keep tabs on what Johnson does.