And what did they find? Something that would help them in the next race, not in races months from now.
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There’s something about starting from the beginning that can help turn a good car into a great car. And the Hendrick Motorsports team, one with Johnson that had won six titles in the eight years from 2006-2013, got a reminder of that.
The Tuesday-Wednesday test at Homestead, originally designed for Johnson to prepare for the 2014 championship race, ended up being pivotal in Johnson’s win Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway. Because Johnson already was eliminated from Chase contention and because NASCAR’s new testing ban goes into effect Nov. 16, Johnson’s team decided to spend at least a full day working on the 2015 package.
The new package includes reduced downforce in addition to a reduction of horsepower. NASCAR hopes that it creates more passing.
“We went there with a different and open mindset because we showed up with the 2015 package,” crew chief Chad Knaus said. “We began to develop our own theories and our own solutions to the problems that we had.
“It was actually really good. We switched the second half of day two to the 2014 package. A lot of the stuff we had learned with the 2015 package actually applied. We were able to actually draw some good conclusions and apply that here for this weekend.”
The Homestead and Texas tracks are both 1.5-mile ovals, and although Homestead has progressive banking (where the banking in the top grove is slightly more than the lower groove to encourage passing), they have similarities because of the tire wear, Knaus said.
Johnson qualified third Friday, had the fastest car in the final practice Saturday and had a stout car in winning the race Sunday by leading 191 of the 341 laps.
“There weren’t many cars in ‘15 form,” Johnson said about the Homestead test. “We were kind of on our own little island, pretty calm, relaxed atmosphere, just working through stuff. We definitely hit on some things.
“So maybe the calm environment of being in ‘15 form helped. Once we got rolling in ‘15 form, I was hurting people’s feelings in ‘14 configuration and pulling away from them with the (less) horsepower. We knew once we got our car into the ‘14 configuration on Day 2, we’d be pretty quick. That happened, too.”
Johnson said the car drives similar but just at a slower pace.
“We really went back to what our roots were, how we work on a race car, how we want to do things, how we typically would do things 48 (team) style,” Knaus said. “We found a little bit of speed down there. We were able to expand on that on the second day, found a little bit more speed, some more comfort.”
And that finally made Johnson feel like he had in many of his championship seasons. Yes, he did win three races in 2014, but that was over a four week stretch in May-June. Beyond that stretch, Johnson hasn’t been his typical stout self.
“We went down there and Chad and the guys started making me happy,” Johnson said. “I guess I’ve been unhappy for a while. These guys put some great speed in the race car, got me really comfortable with the car."
