4 car diary - Rolex 24, Rocky Road for Johnson

Jimmie Johnson Spins to Avoid Errant Porsche
By Bill King

Jimmie Johnson inherited the lead-lap fruits of Elliott Forbes-Robinson's labors and set about to consolidate that position for The Boss Snowplow No. 4 Howard-Boss Motorsports Pontiac Crawford.

#4 Howard - Boss Motorsports Pontiac Crawford: Butch Leitzinger, Elliott Forbes-Robinson, Jimmie Johnson.

Photo by Eric Gilbert.

"The pace car waved me by. What do you want me to do?"

"Is there a restart line?"

It was all clearly explained by the Crawford crew and Johnson performed a flawless restart, holding the lead to Lap 344 when Emmanuel Collard in the No. 10 Pontiac Riley reeled him in. Johnson stayed close for two laps before a Porsche behaved badly in traffic forcing him to spin to avoid serious damage to the No. 4. The incident, colorfully described over the radio, cost Johnson a half a minute.

A pit stop 10 laps later for Hoosiers and fuel took 57.156sec with a visual inspection for spin damage turning up nothing alarming. Meanwhile, Collard had upped the ante and was turning laps in the 1:48s. Johnson's spotter was speaking NASCAR with encouragements like, "Awesome job, buddy. Keep diggin'."

By the end of his stint, Johnson was on the tail of the third-placed No. 03 and pitted to turn the car over to Butch Leitzinger after a 51.403sec stop.

Johnson was still a bit perplexed by the Porsche incident describing it as follows: "A Porsche spun going into the inner loop, the bus stop on the back. The Porsche that was right in front of me, he just really overreacted and slowed practically to a stop. I didn't have any choice to dodge him, and I spun the car out in the process. Rather than plow into the back of him, I went for the grass and spun it out.

"Despite that, the car was great," Johnson said. "We were able to pull back on the leaders. I know we've got something for 'em."

Team note: the No. 2 teamcar lost five laps when an electrical failure at the back of the car required the replacement of the entire rear section.

Editor's note:
Please view all the diary entries by Bill King on the No. 4 Howard-Boss Motorsports Pontiac Crawford at http://www.motorsport.com/news/series.asp?S=GRANDAM