Jimmie Johnson Did Sunday What Jimmie Johnson Does

By ESPN

Jimmie Johnson did Sunday what Jimmie Johnson does.

And maybe he even did what Johnson sometimes doesn't.

He wins races that force drivers to adapt to the race track, to relish the unknown, to love a slick race track and to take advantage of opportunities. So it didn't seem like a surprise with him winning the first race on the repaved and reconfigured Texas Motor Speedway, a place where he has now won five of the past eight races.

Then again, looks can be deceiving. After winning for the 81st time in his career, the seven-time Cup champion truly seemed to have surprised himself to win on a repaved track, feeling that more spins such as the one he had in qualifying could have been part of his race-day itinerary.

"The rougher the track, the more porous surface, it just falls into my upbringing and slipping and sliding a car around," Johnson said. "When you have a repave and the car slides, usually you can't catch it. It's usually a much tighter window for car control.

"My own history, ... I'm not the guy at those [repaved] tracks for whatever reason."

With different banking now in Turns 1 and 2 (20 degrees instead of 24) while Turns 3 and 4 remained the same (at 24 degrees), drivers had to choose where they wanted an optimal setup and which corner they would make some sacrifices, in addition to handling the new surface.

They didn't really know how to approach it, considering TMS officials tried to grind enough rubber into the track overnight to create a second racing groove. While not perfect, the second groove came in enough that drivers could venture up there if they needed to make a pass.

Johnson looked solid both high and low, appearing as if he had the best car over the final 100 laps.

"Jimmie is obviously amazing," crew chief Chad Knaus said. "There's no doubt about that. I would never, ever downplay the ability of Jimmie.

"But Jimmie couldn't do it without ... all of our engineers and all of our mechanics. It took an awful lot to get exactly what we wanted underneath the race car."

Johnson hasn't had what he has wanted underneath the race car in 2017. Hendrick Motorsports had not won a race in the first six races of 2017, with Johnson's victory in winning the championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway to cap the 2016 season as the proud organization's most recent victory.

The organization has felt behind as a whole in the first six races. But ever since Friday at Texas, Johnson showed his might, with the only hiccup coming in qualifying, when he spun in the first round -- requiring a new set of tires that sent him to the rear of the field for Sunday's start.

That almost appeared as an omen in what hasn't been a Johnson-type season. In his first 15 full-time years, he already had a top-5 finish by the sixth race. This year? None. He had only one top-10 finish -- a ninth at Phoenix -- and had not led any laps in the previous three events.

That all changed Sunday, as he led 18 laps, including passing Joey Logano to lead the final 17.

"To pass as many cars as we did was out of the ordinary," Johnson said. "It was very slick. You didn't have a second lane to work.

"I'm really, really surprised and also impressed with the car that we built and created to handle those conditions."

The slow Hendrick start might have been the impetus to get a car that good for a race. Except for Chase Elliott's, the Hendrick teams haven't shown the speed, and they didn't appear to make many gains throughout the recent West Coast swing of Las Vegas, Phoenix and Fontana.

"We have been a bit behind, but not a lot," Knaus said. "It's amazing how much a small adjustment can change what it is that you need to do.

"Once we check out and we go out to that West Coast swing, it's very difficult to make improvements on your race car, because just, quite frankly, you're not there [in the shop before they leave].

"We don't get to see them. We don't get to work on them, and we don't get our hands on them. So it's a challenge. Getting back to Charlotte, leading up to Martinsville, and then after Martinsville, gave us an opportunity to work on our race cars and make them better."

When Johnson started at the rear of the field, he had his teammates all nearby. The teams of Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kasey Kahne and Elliott never got their cars through tech for qualifying on Friday, so they started in the back on Sunday.

"It's great for Rick [Hendrick]," Earnhardt said. "He had to have been pretty disappointed Friday with the qualifying issues and how things have been going for us over the last couple of weeks.

"He could win anytime he shows up with the four cars he's got. So it's no surprise. It's great for the company. It's great for Jimmie. He gives all of us a little motivation and a little momentum, even when one car wins. We all feed off of that."

One area where Johnson has motivated his teammates has centered on fitness. The accomplished triathlete now has all the Hendrick drivers running and cycling.

So the surprise of the day came after the race -- as Johnson had started cramping, needing to go to the infield care center after the race for three bags of intravenous fluids. His drink system didn't work from the start of the race, not sending fluids through the straw into his helmet. He pushed the button and nothing happened.

He had gone on lengthy bicycle rides -- nearly 75 miles in total on Friday -- and obviously is one of the most fit NASCAR drivers. But the race in the heat of the mid-80s and a strong wind nearly got the best of him.

"I was so happy the car was running good and we weren't making mistakes, I kind of overlooked it all," Johnson said. "Until I was dogging Joey [near the end] and had my left side cramp up, I was like, 'Oh, I'm pretty far behind on fluids to cramp like that.'

"I knew I was hot. I knew it was an aggressive race. I knew my heart rate was high, all those things. I didn't think I was in any trouble until I cramped and it was pretty close to the end of the race, so I'm like, 'I know I can make it from here.'"

He certainly did. He made it all the way through the burnout and Victory Lane celebrations on a day when he thought maybe a young driver might earn the first win of his career.

"We unloaded and we were decent and then clearly ended [Saturday] very happy with our car," Johnson said. "I was like, 'All right, cool, we kind of figured it out.'

"But it was a little bit of a surprise for me."

Not so much to anyone else.

"We saw Jimmie's car in practice," said Logano, who finished third. "It was lights-out fast compared to the field. That's what won him the race today -- a car that was really fast.

"I don't know that they were off before, maybe a little bit. ... The 48 [of Johnson] seems like they picked it up. Crap. Dang it all."