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How hard is it to be a five-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion? Only Jimmie Johnson knows. The issue is that the California native appears to have as many anti-fans as he has fans. Or, at least, his “haters” jeer louder than the cheers.
After his victory in Martinsville last week he had a chance to read their comments. Here's an excerpt of an interview with SpeedTV's Bob Dillner where he explained how and why he responded.
Bob Dillner: As you said, you addressed some of those ‘haters' after the race. Your quote was, ‘You haters have it right. I'm a bad teammate. I have a cheated up car. I'm lucky and the race was fixed. Gotta love Twitter and NASCAR fans.' To me, I was surprised because that's not like Jimmie, from what I see on Twitter. What brought that on?
Jimmie Johnson: Well, just reading the stuff over the course of the day. I had a lot of really good laughs about it, and I ignored it all for a while. And then I thought it would be fun to play into this theme that was on Twitter, that there was no way I'm good enough to win there eight times on my own. There's no way that a good team and driver can win the race, it had to be a cheated-up car. I'm a bad teammate and all of this stuff. I was like, the heck with it, I'll just play into it and here you go.
Dillner: Junior Nation. You never know what's going to come out of their mouths on Twitter. Obviously, they thought you should have let (Dale Earnhardt) Jr. in. Explain that situation.
Johnson: Looking back on it now, sure, it would be easy at the time to do it. The caution comes out half way down the backstretch. I'm worried about getting the car stopped. I hear there's a car in the wall - no number. Then a car pulls off the wall, and is now blocking the road. I pull up. I see it's the 88. Car is tore up and there are flat tires, and he backs up. Okay, thank you. I drive on through and didn't think anything about it. D.W. (Darrell Waltrip) was nice enough to point it out on television as well, and then, here I am with an inbox full of hate mail at the end of the race. People are going to see it however they want. At the end of the day, (Crew Chief) Steve Letarte and Dale Jr. contacted me at the end of the day because they had heard that there was some uproar over it, and they were like, ‘Dude, seriously, you did nothing wrong.' So as long as those two are happy, I'm good.
Dillner: There are some people that don't know you, say that Jimmie Johnson is vanilla. Jimmie Johnson is boring. So you think your calm, cool and collected demeanor is misinterpreted?
Johnson: It could be, but I mean, there was a point in time where I cared what people thought. I was worried about it. I can't live my life that way. The people that know me, know who I am and what I am about. That's all that really matters to me. If I live my life trying to make everybody happy, not living for myself, I would be a fool. There are some really important things to worry about, than if someone thinks I'm vanilla.
After his victory in Martinsville last week he had a chance to read their comments. Here's an excerpt of an interview with SpeedTV's Bob Dillner where he explained how and why he responded.
Bob Dillner: As you said, you addressed some of those ‘haters' after the race. Your quote was, ‘You haters have it right. I'm a bad teammate. I have a cheated up car. I'm lucky and the race was fixed. Gotta love Twitter and NASCAR fans.' To me, I was surprised because that's not like Jimmie, from what I see on Twitter. What brought that on?
Jimmie Johnson: Well, just reading the stuff over the course of the day. I had a lot of really good laughs about it, and I ignored it all for a while. And then I thought it would be fun to play into this theme that was on Twitter, that there was no way I'm good enough to win there eight times on my own. There's no way that a good team and driver can win the race, it had to be a cheated-up car. I'm a bad teammate and all of this stuff. I was like, the heck with it, I'll just play into it and here you go.
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| Photo: NASCAR |
Dillner: Junior Nation. You never know what's going to come out of their mouths on Twitter. Obviously, they thought you should have let (Dale Earnhardt) Jr. in. Explain that situation.
Johnson: Looking back on it now, sure, it would be easy at the time to do it. The caution comes out half way down the backstretch. I'm worried about getting the car stopped. I hear there's a car in the wall - no number. Then a car pulls off the wall, and is now blocking the road. I pull up. I see it's the 88. Car is tore up and there are flat tires, and he backs up. Okay, thank you. I drive on through and didn't think anything about it. D.W. (Darrell Waltrip) was nice enough to point it out on television as well, and then, here I am with an inbox full of hate mail at the end of the race. People are going to see it however they want. At the end of the day, (Crew Chief) Steve Letarte and Dale Jr. contacted me at the end of the day because they had heard that there was some uproar over it, and they were like, ‘Dude, seriously, you did nothing wrong.' So as long as those two are happy, I'm good.
Dillner: There are some people that don't know you, say that Jimmie Johnson is vanilla. Jimmie Johnson is boring. So you think your calm, cool and collected demeanor is misinterpreted?
Johnson: It could be, but I mean, there was a point in time where I cared what people thought. I was worried about it. I can't live my life that way. The people that know me, know who I am and what I am about. That's all that really matters to me. If I live my life trying to make everybody happy, not living for myself, I would be a fool. There are some really important things to worry about, than if someone thinks I'm vanilla.