Just trying something here!

Jimmie Johnson
Jimmie Johnson made his first three Winston Cup starts in 2001, the season in which he scored a breakthrough first NASCAR Busch Series victory in only his fourth season in stock cars while preparing to advance his career to the next level.

While he qualified an impressive 15th in his first start, at Lowe's Motor Speedway, Johnson's best finish was only 25th, at Homestead. He primarily concentrated on maintaining his top-10 standing in the Busch Series point standings.

Johnson, with a limited number of stock car starts on his resume, was the third man in the 2000 Busch Series rookie invasion, but he had an impressive enough rookie season to end it with a Hendrick Motorsports contract to compete in the Winston Cup Series in 2002. Johnson, a former off-road racer, started 31 races and finished 10th in the point standings with six top-10 finishes.

Even though Johnson's consistency was what earned him his point position, with 24 top-25 finishes and an average finish of 20th, the enduring image of him from 2000 is his crash through the Styrofoam blocks at Watkins Glen after a Turn 1 brake failure. Due to the great seasons by fellow rookies Kevin Harvick and Ron Hornaday, Johnson finished only third in the rookie of the year standings.

Johnson, an off-road racer who won championships in the Mickey Thompson Stadium Championship from 1992-94, won the ASA ACDelco Challenge Series Rookie of the Year Award in 1998 and had made less than 100 stock car starts in his career heading into the 2001 season.

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~NOLEY~ <img border="0" alt="[Wavy Guy]" title="" src="graemlins/wave.gif" />

Don't care for Jimmie Johnson, but like the feature <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="smile.gif" />