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| Jimmie Johnson has top-fives in his last two starts. Getting Better! |
“We are back to getting some top-fives and knocking on the door right now. These guys on my team have been working really hard. I think we’re starting to hit our stride as a group. While I’ve had a lot of success on 1.5-mile tracks, Kentucky has always seemed to be a challenge for me. It’s got bumps. Going into Turn 1 you are climbing up a hill and then quickly descend until you actually turn into Turn 3. The cars are very edgy and then you get some grip off of Turn 4 and then you are down the front straightaway again.”
SEASON BEST: Jimmie Johnson’s third-place result last Sunday at Daytona International Speedway was the best finish by the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 team this season. On the heels of a fourth-place finish one week earlier at Chicagoland Speedway, Johnson is on his longest streak of top-five finishes since 2017. He last finished inside the top five in three consecutive races in 2015, when he went on to amass a five-race streak of top-five results.
LOOKING FOR VICTORY LANE AT KENTUCKY: Johnson has led 206 laps at Kentucky Speedway, the most laps led by a driver who has yet to find Victory Lane at the 1.5-mile track. The seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion's best finish at the Sparta track is third, which came in 2011 in his first start at the track. It is one of only four tracks where he has yet to win in the NASCAR Cup Series along with Chicagoland Speedway, Watkins Glen International and the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course.
LUCKY NUMBER NINE?: This weekend will mark Johnson’s ninth start at Kentucky, and as history has it, he’s scored his first win at a track in his ninth start five times. These tracks include Daytona International Superspeedway, ISM Raceway, Sonoma Raceway, Talladega Superspeedway and Texas Motor Speedway. He has gone on to win multiple times on four of those tracks.
TOP-10 STREAKING: Johnson currently has four straight top-10 finishes on 1.5-mile tracks in the NASCAR Cup Series, which is a series-best. Those finishes include a fifth-place result at Texas Motor Speedway, sixth-place at Kansas Speedway, eighth at Charlotte Motor Speedway and fourth at Chicagoland this season. It marks his longest streak of top-10 finishes on 1.5-mile tracks since he had six straight spanning the end of 2015 season and beginning of the 2016 campaign.
GAINING GROUND: In the past three races, Johnson has gained 35 points on the playoff bubble. Since the Pocono race on June 2, he has jumped from 17th to 13th in the point standings.
1.5-MILE MASTER: Over the course of his 83 NASCAR Cup Series wins, Johnson has amassed 28 of them – the most of all-time – on 1.5-mile tracks. NASCAR Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon is the second-most winningest driver on the track length with 17, followed by Kevin Harvick and Tony Stewart (15), Dale Earnhardt (14), Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski and Richard Petty (13).
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