Just when it was looking like there was a new cast of characters poised to win the races and earn championships in the Sprint Cup Series, a very familiar — and dominating — driver raced back to the head of the pack.
Jimmie Johnson, who was eliminated from the 2014 Chase before the final two segments, wasn’t out of the picture for long. He roared back to the top of the class, coming from the rear of the pack to win Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Johnson was one of a group of drivers who had to start the race from the back after their crews could not get their cars through NASCAR’s inspection line in time to qualify on Friday. That turned out to be a minor inconvenience for Johnson and his No. 48 team, which now is guaranteed a berth in the 2015 Chase under NASCAR’s “win and you’re in” format.
Johnson, who is seeking a seventh Cup championship that would tie him with Richard Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt at the top of the all-time list, started 37th but had driven to 13th place by the time the first caution flag flew at Lap 27. He took the lead for the first time on Lap 198 and wound up leading six times for 92 laps, including the final 21. He finished 1.8 seconds ahead of the 2014 Cup champion Kevin Harvick, who led 116 laps, more than any other driver. Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished third, ahead of pole-sitter Joey Logano and Matt Kenseth.
It was Johnson’s fourth victory at AMS and the 71st of his career.
His crew chief, Chad Knaus, said Johnson’s run to the front was something to behold. “To see Jimmie do what he did [Sunday] was phenomenal,” Knaus said.
Johnson said he considers a win in the second race of the season an indication of better things to come.
“It is a sign of who is going to be competitive,” he said. “This says a lot for us. What we did here we can take to a lot of tracks ahead.”
And being locked into the Chase so early is a relief. “It takes the pressure off of us,” he said.
But Johnson cautioned that it’s still early to draw any real conclusions about who will be fast at upcoming races.
“I’m feeling really great, but not 100 percent yet,” he said.
Sunday’s 500-miler began under overcast skies with a cold mist keeping temperatures around 40 degrees and delaying the start for 55 minutes. Still, a respectable crowd estimated at more than 50,000 turned out for the first race since the track’s NASCAR date was moved from Labor Day Weekend to the first weekend of March.
The race ran relatively incident-free until the latter stages when two multi-car crashes knocked out some of the top contenders. The first, at Lap 257, collected Jeff Gordon, Jamie McMurray and Denny Hamlin.
The second, coming at Lap 306, involved six drivers and brought out the red flag for a nine-minute clean-up period. It started when Greg Biffle and Joe Nemechek collided just after a restart and when the smoke cleared, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Tony Stewart, Clint Bowyer and Kyle Larson all had damage to their cars. But the final 14 laps ran without incident, with Johnson fending off an early challenge from Earnhardt before motoring away unchallenged.
David Ragan, the only Georgian in the starting field, drove the No. 18 Toyota for the injured Kyle Busch. He kept the car in the top 10 for the first quarter of the race but fell a lap down at the halfway mark and finished 18th.
Brett Moffitt, another youngster in a fill-in role, drove the No. 55 for Brian Vickers and finished eighth despite sustaining considerable damage in a mid-race incident.
