Nerves hit Jimmie Johnson while he was on the starting grid before the Rolex 24 in Daytona.
The seven-time NASCAR champion is starting a new chapter in his career – at the age of 45 – in unknown racing cars. He was scheduled to start the most prestigious sports car race in America for his Action Express team and Johnson had only one goal for his first stint on the Cadillac.
“I certainly didn’t want to break the toy in the early hours,” said Johnson after driving about 70 minutes on Saturday around the Daytona International Speedway.
He handed No. 48 to teammate Simon Pagenaud and then turned to Kamui Kobayashi, the two-time winner of the Rolex 24, for an excited interrogation.
Johnson, a little more than two months away as the most dominant NASCAR driver in the past two decades, “jumped into the pool with ankle weights” while making the transition to new racing formulas. This Rolex 24 is the eighth of his career, but the first in a decade, and is a warm-up for his move to IndyCar, where he will be a newcomer to a field full of drivers half his age.
His career change resulted in an eventful pre-season test alongside some of the best drivers in the world, and the demands sparked a spark in Johnson. He has not won in the last three seasons of his NASCAR Cup career.
“I know the world I am entering, I know what I have moved away from and the comfort I have had there, and I am very aware of how uncomfortable I will be entering this new arena, and it makes me feel alive,” said Johnson. “I’m so excited to be uncomfortable and so excited to learn something new, so excited to drive these cars and really grow as a driver and have a lot of new experiences in life.
“It makes me feel more alive than ever.”
Rolex started with a healthy 50 car field, a strong recovery after 38 entries last season. Daytona officials said that participation in the field would be limited for the event, but did not release a capacity number. Campers were only allowed in motorhomes, with prohibited tents and masks required on the property.
Alegra Motorsports announced just before the start of the race that driver Michael de Quesada tested positive for COVID-19 and had left the track to isolate himself. He was replaced in Mercedes competing in the GT Daytona class by Mike Skeen.
Otherwise, the event went on as scheduled. Halfway there was a swarm of fans visiting the manufacturers’ exhibitions, the Ferris wheel was up and running, and many of the best road racers in the world were looking forward to the enduro event that took place twice a day.
Johnson stood firm on his first pass at the wheel of the Cadillac, and the entry of Action Express, partly with Hendrick Motorsports and sponsored by Ally, has a solid chance of overall victory. Your team will have to face the full-time entry of Action Express, which brought the current NASCAR champion, Chase Elliott, to his sports car debut.
Hendrick sent a handful of his employees to Daytona, including former Johnson team leader Chad Knaus and Jeff Gordon, who was part of the 2017 Rolex winning team for Wayne Taylor Racing. Johnson climbed on top of the box after driving to talk to Elliott and Gordon.
Wayne Taylor Racing returned to Daytona as the winner of the last two Rolex 24s, as well as three of the last four that date from Gordon’s victory. But the team moved from Cadillac to Acura during the off-season and are still adjusting to the change. The transition was facilitated by pilots Ricky Taylor, Helio Castroneves and Alexander Rossi, who piloted Acura for the past three years by the Penske team.
But the Cadillacs – four in the seven-car DPi class – have so far been the group’s leaders. Action Express’s entry with Elliott in the squad started from pole after winning last weekend’s qualifying race, and Chip Ganassi Racing showed no sign of rust after a year out of the series.
Ganassi’s entry was the overall leader of the race with just over two hours of running behind starter Renger van der Zande, who along with Kobayashi won two in a row with WTR. Both seek to become the first driver to win three consecutive Rolex watches.
Ganassi, who has eight wins at Rolex, is also using current IndyCar champion Scott Dixon and Kevin Magnussen, who moved to sports cars after seven seasons in Formula One.
While Dixon waited for his turn in the car, he marveled at the work Johnson had done in the past two months. Dixon and Johnson will be Ganassi’s teammates at IndyCar.
“I think a lot of people, what they see, especially in our team, is just their work ethic and it grinds everything up,” said Dixon. “He is just trying to pick up speed as quickly as possible. This should probably be the biggest task for anyone who has tried to go from opposite ends of motorsport.”
Johnson recognized that he is an old dog trying to learn new tricks.
“It’s been fun to really challenge myself behind the wheel in a whole new way,” said Johnson. “These high aerodynamic cars are a lot of fun, number one, and a big challenge to rewire all the things I learned while driving the heavy cars.”