In happy hour today (Saturday), Jimmie Johnson brushed the wall. His car, which had qualified on the pole for Sunday's race at Kansas, was immediately taken to the garage and TV cameras showed the crew getting the back up car out even before Johnson drove his 'wrecked' car back to the garage. It took all of 22 minutes to have the backup car out on the track for final practice AND Johnson's 'backup car' was fasted in practice...HMMMMM....Looks like this was a premeditated setup to get a 'qualifying car' in the race for the pole, and then the 'backup' car in the race to run the race. And the fact that Johnson will drop to the back of the field at the start is utterly meaningless. Within 20 laps he'll likely be in the top-15, barring an unforeseen accident. It is so tiresome seeing the Hendrick teams pull stunts like this, and get away with it.
NASCAR officials have always made the decision as to whether a care is repairable or whether a backup car may be brought out. Surface sheet metal damage was minimal and NO NASCAR officials were shown around the car while the team decided to bring out the back up car. Frankly, this was quite surprising. NASCAR always says they run the show. In this case, it looked like Hendrick Motorsports was calling the shots for NASCAR once again.
If NASCAR was keeping tight control over this situation, well, it sure didn't look like it!! Guess they were too busy worrying about Tony Stewart's being caught cussing in the garage.
