Jimmie Johnson will forever be grateful for the help that he got from Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Talladega in 2011.
We’re just days away from action at the Talladega Superspeedway in Lincoln, Nebraska. The iconic race track has provided so many big moments for the sport of NASCAR (and one massive hit for Eric Church), and this Sunday, the annual racetrack will surely frame yet another finish for the books.
Racing fans likely remember that one of those classic, Talladega finishes came in 2011, when during the final lap of the Aaron’s 499, Hendrick Motorsports teammates Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jimmie Johnson made a move that led to the driver of the No. 48 car celebrating in victory lane.
He reached the checkered flag 0.002 seconds before Clint Bowyer did, in case you needed a refresher. At the time, it was the closest finish ever recorded in the NASCAR Cup Series. Thus, it’s a moment worth revisiting, and Jimmie Johnson did just that when asked by NASCAR to recall how he came out victorious:
“Junior and I get disconnected (entering Turn 3), we had such a run, I didn’t know where to go with the run. Fortunately, we get reconnected, and just wondering where’s an opening going to come from. And (the other four cars) start racing each other on the high side and give us that lane on the bottom, and I have no idea if we’re going to get there. But Junior’s pushing, pushing, pushing.
That was just such a wild form of racing. We were working on different iterations and how we communicate with the car that’s pushing with you, how the spotters work. Of course, through Hendrick cars, we were trying to team up … we had an agreement that coming to the checkered, if we’re nose-to-tail, we’re going to race but in a pack like that, and the goal was to get a Hendrick car to Victory Lane.”
And that they did.
Jimmie Johnson won at Talladega, and he knows that he couldn’t have done it without a little help from his friend. Earnhardt Jr. and Johnson perfectly executed a late move to the bottom of the track during the race’s last lap, and the driver of the No. 48 car knows he wouldn’t have ever tried it without help from his team and Dale Jr. pushing him from behind:
“The evolution of the way Dale Jr. thinks about things – I felt like we had the best scenario with our spotters, the way they were giving us information, the way we could communicate to one another, and we really perfected this style of racing. I give all the credit, most of the credit, to Junior, and just the way he was thinking was out of the norm.”
Johnson got the win, and ultimately got to raise the trophy. So what did he do to thank Dale Earnhardt Jr., you might be asking? First, before he drove to victory lane, he gifted Dale Jr. with the checkered flag. Then, he made sure his then Hendrick Motorsports teammates was paid… in beer:
“I think it was 50 cases of beer to his house in thanks.”
Knowing Dale Earnhardt Jr., I’m sure he happily accepted that thank you.
You can relive the exciting finish – that earned Dale Earnhardt Jr. 50 cases of beer – below:
