Jimmie Johnson will be chasing history next season, while new teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. will be trying to get a giant monkey off his back.
Johnson just captured his second straight Nextel Cup championship, and next season he will be trying to join Cale Yarborough as just the second driver in NASCAR history to three-peat.
Earnhardt Jr. left DEI, the company his father built, and will join Johnson at Hendrick Motor Sports next season. HMS is the premiere team in the Nextel Cup (Sprint Cup next year), and Earnhardt Jr. will be under tremendous scrutiny if he fails to live up to expectations.
“I think he has nothing but pressure on his shoulders,” Johnson said about Earnhardt Jr. “But the situation we are going to create for him at Hendrick, if he can just fall back and enjoy driving a race car, then it will all fall into place.
“We all want to see him succeed at Hendrick and we know the equipment’s right, so if he just depends on the Hendrick way he is going to be just fine.”
The pressure for Earnhardt Jr. stems from the tremendous success his father Dale Sr. enjoyed – seven Cup titles – before his tragic death at the Daytona 500 in 2001.
Earnhardt Jr. has 17 career victories including a Daytona 500 but has yet to win a points championship. He missed out on the Chase this season and finished a disappointing 16th in the standings.
Johnson, along with the other drivers in top 10 of the standings, is in Manhattan for Champions Week to celebrate the end of the season. The festivities included a victory lap through Midtown yesterday morning, where 150,000 fans lined the streets of the Big Apple, and an awards banquet tomorrow evening.
justin.terranova@
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