Jimmie Johnson set to “throw caution to the wind” on Saturday night at Daytona

With three wins in his back pocket, Jimmie Johnson knows that he is locked into the Chase for the Championship come September. With that in mind, there’s only one strategy coming into this weekend – win and “let it rip”.

“We have enough wins that we can throw caution to the wind if it’s strategy on track or whatever it is,” he commented. “Our goal is to come here and put ourselves in position to win and hopefully enter that white flag lap on that front row in those first couple of positions and have a shot at winning the race.”

Part of the route to victory is complete as Johnson was able to post a solid qualifying effort, which should play well on Saturday night as he feels track position is more important at Daytona than Talladega as Talladega has “so much more room”.

“If you slip back, you seem to find your way to the front much easier at Talladega than you do here,” he commented. “But, I can’t explain why some races are more exciting. Some races whoever the leader is, decides to run around on the top and we sit up there in a 43-car line. I don’t know why. It’s crazy because it takes more than just one driver to make that decision and to help lead that. But there’s kind of an energy on the track, or a vibe, that is assumed by all drivers after a while. You either get caught up in the excitement and is a real racy event, or it falls into more of a ‘ride around the top’ event. I don’t know what triggers that. It’s real tough to follow that.”

Even though there’s comfort coming into the weekend, Johnson admits that heading into the intermediate tracks beyond Daytona, his team still has work to do if they want to truly compete for the championship.

“The No. 4 (Kevin Harvick) is really the most consistent car with speed off the truck. The Penske guys seem to be able to create some really big speed at times; maybe not as consistent as the No. 4,” Johnson noted. “We’ve been able to get there by Sunday. And a lot of weekends it hasn’t been a fun journey; unloading and searching and finding our way come race time. But even with that challenge we’re still going into Victory Lane and collecting points. That’s the part we need to clean up. And we’re very aware of it inside the team that unloading on Friday with speed in the car is really the area we need to zero-in on.

“We try to look back and reflect and say wow, we’ve done a great job as a team (by) showing up ‘off’ and finding our way there. So, there’s plenty to be proud of. But come Chase-time, you can’t show up and unload on the right side of the scoring monitor and then find your way to Victory Lane. You’re putting yourself too far behind the eight ball. Luckily we have a couple of months to really advance and get our cars where they need to be.”

On Saturday night, Johnson feels that Harvick will be one of the drivers that he has to deal with in getting to victory lane, as well as Matt Kenseth, Jeff Gordon and Kyel Busch among others.

“The No. 20 (Matt Kenseth), the No. 4 (Kevin Harvick) seems to be there, Kevin seems to always put himself in position, the No. 24 (Jeff Gordon), a little more on the erratic side but with plenty of speed would be the No. 18 (Kyle Busch), he’s always a threat and wild things seem to happen for him,” Johnson commented on his competition. “I guess the guy I’d put at the top of the list is the No. 20 and that might just reflect back to last year. It seems like the No. 20 and the No. 48 were the strongest cars on the plate tracks and we just kind of followed each other. He’d lead and then I’d lead. So, the first one as of now is probably the No. 20.”