Johnson is not great road racer

Associated Press

Sonoma, Calif.

Jimmie Johnson hasn’t been to Victory Lane in 10 races, his longest drought in two years.

NASCAR’s four-time defending champion has finished outside the top-10 in five of the last seven races and dropped to seventh in the Sprint Cup Series standings.

And now he’s at Infineon Raceway, one of just five tracks where he’s never won a Cup race. It’s not that being in wine country poses a problem. Johnson’s just not that good at road course racing.

“Everybody knows how much I have focused on it and how badly I want to win on a road course, especially here,” said Johnson, a Californian. “It’s time.”

Johnson has progressively gotten better at Infineon, where he’s cracked the top-five just twice and has averaged a 17th place finish in eight career starts. He was a career-best fourth last year, but didn’t carry that improvement into Watkins Glen, the only other road course in the series, where he finished 12th last August.

But after qualifying second for today’s race — he briefly held the pole until he was bumped by defending winner Kasey Kahne — Johnson believes he’s got a chance at winning on a road course.

“I feel really good about it,” said Johnson, who has run two Grand-Am events this year for more practice. “We’ve been testing and doing everything I can to be a better road course driver and to get our cars better. So we’ll see what happens.”

His lack of success in Sonoma became a topic of conversation this weekend, even as Johnson keeps ducking the assertion he’s in some sort of slump. He’s scoffed at that notion for weeks — even though he had three finishes of 31st or worse last month.

But he’s clearly aware of the perception. He joked that “everybody keeps saying I’m in a slump” when presented with his trophy for being the first quarter winner in Driver Of The Year voting. Johnson was honored for winning three of the first five races this season, a span dating to Bristol in March.

NATIONWIDE

ELKHART LAKE, Wis.

Carl Edwards swooped past Jacques Villeneuve on a restart with nine laps to go, then ran away from the field to win the NASCAR Nationwide series race at Road America on Saturday.

Villeneuve made a wild charge to the lead with 12 laps to go. But another caution bunched up the field, allowing Edwards to make his decisive move.

Ron Fellows finished second in a Chevrolet, 4.302 seconds behind Edwards’ Ford. Brendan Gaughan finished third in a Toyota. Villeneuve had mechanical problems in the closing laps, costing him a potential second-place finish.