NASCAR: Jimmie Johnson Is Having Success At Newer Tracks

During the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, NASCAR added many new tracks to the circuit, and Jimmie Johnson has been dominant at most of them.

Jimmie Johnson is one of NASCAR’s most decorated drivers. Throughout his 14-year Sprint Cup Series career, he has managed to rack up 75 wins, 207 top-5’s, 314 top-10’s and 34 poles. Though he has success just about everywhere he goes, there is a certain group of tracks that he has seems to drive exceptionally better at each season and that’s the newer tracks added in the late 90’s and early 00’s.

During that time period, many new tracks were being built and introduced into the Cup Series. With every new track comes a new learning process and that is the reason why Johnson has had success at these tracks. Though his first full-time season was not until 2002, he began Cup Series racing in 2001, just a few years after these tracks began being used, meaning that there was still a new feeling to them and it provided him with a chance to race on tracks that even some of the most experienced veterans were not used to racing on.

Certainly these tracks aren’t considered new, but they are newer tracks since most of the others were introduced years before these.

The first of these tracks is Texas Motor Speedway. TMS saw it’s first Sprint Cup Series action in April of 1997 and it is known for it’s high speed racing, which is what makes it so much fun for drivers.

Jimmie Johnson just so happens to be the most successful driver to ever race at the track. In his years of racing there, he has won six races, more than anyone else, while picking up 13 top-5’s and 19 top-10’s along the way. His average start and finish is 8.4 and he has won the last five of seven races at the track, including four straight in the fall.

The next track is Auto Club Speedway, another one of Johnson’s favorites. The first race there was just a few months after Texas, in June of 1997.

Johnson again has the most wins at the track with five. He has also added in 12 top-5’s and 15 top-10’s with an average finish of 6.8 If he hasn’t been winning at the track, he’s been competing, with seven other finishes in either second or third place. Johnson also managed to pick up his first Cup Series win at the track in 2002.

Las Vegas Motor Speedway opened to the Cup Series in March of 1998. Johnson did something there that no other driver has ever done when he won three consecutive races at the track from 2005-2007. He picked up another win there in 2010, giving him the most wins all-time at the track.

Last up is Kansas Motor Speedway, which is one of NASCAR’s newest tracks. The first race there was in September of 2001. Over the years, Johnson has accumulated three wins, tied for the most all-time, and has led lap totals of 124 and 197 in a couple of those wins.

By looking at all of this information, it is obvious that Johnson loves racing at standard 1.5 or 2.0-mile tracks, which is the lengths of the ones mentioned above. He isn’t just a solid racer at these tracks either; at most of them, he holds the record in major categories such as wins and average finish.

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The bottom line, is that throughout the years, Jimmie Johnson has been a force everywhere he goes, but it’s something about the newer tracks in the circuit that he likes and it’s obvious whenever he is making late passes at Texas or protecting his lead in a G-W-C at Kansas. He simply has a knack for finishing well at some of NASCAR’s more underrated tracks.