Knaus Rolls Dice On Fuel, Guides Johnson To Phoenix Score

AVONDALE, Ariz. — After dominating last season by winning 10 races and his second-straight Cup title, Jimmie Johnson had to gamble to win his first race in 2008.
Johnson stretched his fuel mileage to steal Saturday night’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix Int’l Raceway.  It was Hendrick Motorsports’s first victory this season.
Johnson’s Chevrolet finished 7.002 seconds ahead of Clint Bowyer’s Chevrolet. Denny Hamlin’s Toyota Camry was 15.910 seconds behind in third.

Jimmie Johnson (Autostock Photo)

It took a “little white lie” from crew chief Chad Knaus to encourage Johnson to slow down and save fuel.
“Since I climbed out of the car, I found out he was lying for the better good of the team,” Johnson said after scoring the 34th Cup triumph of his career. “First, he said I was like 10 seconds ahead. Then, he said, ‘He pitted, you have 20 seconds, let off, two more seconds a lap.’”
The “he” was Bowyer, and it wasn’t a little lie, but a big one.
“Bowyer, I guess, didn’t pit,” Johnson admitted. “It worked and he knew what the gap was. I didn’t know who was there. There were a lot of cars at full speed trying to get by me. I just tried to stay up in the second lane, be smart with the fuel, and not step on the gas pedal too hard and just kind of coast around.”
The strategy worked as Johnson had plenty of fuel — enough to even rev the engine and smoke his tires to celebrate his victory.
“My instinct was to step on the gas pedal,” Johnson said. “That was good. The white lies he was telling me were even more helpful.
“When he (Knaus) says something, I might think about it for a split second, but I believe him every time.”
That trust allowed Johnson to win at PIR for the second-straight race. He won here last November, delivering what would be the knockout blow to Jeff Gordon in the race for the Cup title in 2007.
But on Saturday night, it looked like if a Hendrick Motorsports driver was going to win the race, it would be Dale Earnhardt, Jr., who led as late as lap 271 of the 312-lap contest.
In fact, the most entertaining portions of the race were Earnhardt’s battles with Mark Martin and Johnson. But Earnhardt faded to a seventh-place finish.
“I’m not frustrated,” Earnhardt said. “I had a good finish and I’m proud of my team and I had a great car. I don’t know what our expectations truly were going into the race, but I don’t think they were that good. I don’t know if we could have made it at the end on fuel. I don’t know if we could have made it. I don’t know when we stopped, or how much I was burning a lap.
“I can’t do the math. I just do what I am told. We did the right thing. We can’t run out and finish out of the top 10. We did the right thing, but I’m not frustrated, though.”

DEPLOYED: Dale Earnhardt, Jr. leads the Subway Fresh Fit 500 Saturday night at Phoenix Int'l Raceway. (HHP/Harold Hinson Photo)

Carl Edwards’s Ford finished fourth and Mark Martin’s Chevrolet rounded out the top five.
Johnson led four times for 120 laps, while Earnhardt was in front three times for 87. Martin led twice for 68 laps. There were 10 lead changes among four drivers and eight cautions for 42 laps.
The winner collected $262,111 and won at an average speed of 103.292 miles per hour.
For most of the race, it looked like it would be Earnhardt that would give Hendrick Motorsports its first victory in this season. That was before Martin passed the crowd favorite with 41 laps to go, dropping Earnhardt into second place.
Hamlin moved up to second place before he pitted for fuel and two tires with 15 laps to go. Martin Truex, Jr. pitted with 13 laps to go and Tony Stewart pitted with 12 laps left.  Stewart’s Toyota stalled coming off pit road, blowing his chance at winning the race.
Earnhardt made his final pit stop with 11 to go while Martin continued to lead. But one lap later, Martin pitted for the final time for two tires and fuel.
That put Johnson in the lead with eight laps to go. Edwards pitted for fuel with only seven laps to go. Johnson had a 10-second lead over Clint Bowyer with six laps left.
As the race became a battle of pit stops and fuel strategies, it was Johnson and Bowyer that tried to stretch it out to the very end.
“We were probably a seventh-place car all night and never really got higher than that,” Bowyer said. “We were conserving brakes, and halfway through the run thought we might be able to go all the way. Gil Martin (crew chief) told me we were three laps shy of making it. I was sure I had saved enough.
“You never know for sure. He told me we were only three laps shy of making it. We got stretched out there and I conserved and it paid off.”
But while Bowyer stretched his fuel to finish second, Johnson went slow enough to win, going against his basic instincts as a race driver.
“We don’t play the fuel mileage game,” Johnson admitted. “We race for points year after year. If we can’t make it, we’re coming to pit road. So the fact that we stayed out and rolled the dice, I figured I would probably run out coming off of turn four.
“I had enough to do a little burnout, see the guys on the crew, then I drove around to the backstretch and ran out. It was figured to a T.”