Johnson Makes 300th Career Start at Talladega; Using Somewhat New Chassis This Week

Jimmie Johnson rolls into Talladega Superspeedway for his 17th Sprint Cup 'Dega start and what will be the 300th start of his career. He has earned one win, four top-five and seven top-10 finishes over his first 16 starts. He has completed 95.8% (2898 of 3025) of competition laps at the venue and has led 192. Overall, his average finish position at Talladega has been a rather average 17.0, and very mediocre, or poor by Johnson standards, but also very telling about the volatile nature of the track.

This week he'll be using chassis No. 574, which will be making it's first start this week. Johnson was scheduled to race it in the Daytona 500 but was forced to a backup after a wreck in practice. His back-up chassis will be chassis No. 482 which he drove to a sixth-place result at Talladega last November.

JOHNSON ON MAKING HIS 300TH CAREER START AT TALLADEGA THIS WEEKEND: "I can't believe it'll be my 300th start this weekend. It doesn't seem like that long ago that I was climbing in a Cup car for the first time. It's been a pretty amazing ride so far and I still can't believe I get to drive racecars for a living. It's pretty cool. I'm also very proud of my team and what we've done together and also what I've accomplished as a driver. We've had a lot of pretty cool stuff happen to us in 300 starts. I'm looking forward to what's ahead for this team. I know we have a lot of racing left in us."