Q) WHAT HAPPENED?:
Johnson: ‘The first one (tire) I was able to drive the car all the way through Turns 1 and 2. I knew I had a flat and then got down the back and came in. The other one just blew on the straight as soon as I hit the brakes. I’m not sure what caused it. I’m sure there will be a lot of speculation and I’m sure finger pointing back to the teams or our team. But we saw some issues here especially with that particular tire the last couple of days. We will try to dig in and learn more, but I can promise you one thing is wasn’t low tire pressure. I’ve been out here for two days running around and haven’t had a flat.’
Q) CERTAINLY NOT THAT QUICK INTO A RUN EITHER?
Johnson: ‘Well there are many ways to speculate and think what could have caused it and certainly after the first we could have had damage that allowed something to rub on the tire and blow the second one so quickly. But just a bummer, I’m expecting people to quickly point back at the team and say it’s our fault and I guess if it is we will accept it. But the car was fast, had a great day qualifying. We spent the time to come up here and test and get everything ready and prepared and just unfortunate that we are out so early.’
Q) WHAT HAPPENED THE FIRST TIME?
Johnson: ‘I’m not really sure. It just went soft on me. I don’t know why. But I can promise you one thing, it wasn’t due to low left rear tire pressure, which is what a lot of people are speculating. We’ve been here for two days running and I had no issues. It’s unfortunate, regardless. And then you can look at the second tire and think that maybe some damage was done from the first tire that caused the second one to go so quickly. That’s a good argument but I just don’t know at this point. I don’t know if we’ll ever know. Unfortunately, two tires went flat in a matter of laps.’
Q) IN RELATION TO WHAT YOU HAD HOPED TO LEARN TODAY THAT WOULD HELP YOU IN SEPTEMBER, HOW BIG OF A SETBACK IS THIS?
Johnson: ‘It’s definitely a setback. We had a good test up here. We had a very fast car. It would have been nice to get a race in here before we come back for the second one, so it’s definitely a setback missing out on track time.’
Q) HOW WEIRD IS IT TO HAVE ONE ISSUE AND THEN ANOTHER ISSUE?
Johnson: ‘Yeah, it’s weird when that happens. I didn’t expect it and I stood on the brakes into Turn 1 and it exploded and I’m like, oh boy; here we go.’
Q) ON THE TEST AT NHMS EARLIER
Johnson: ‘We were up here testing. And in the last two days here, Friday and Saturday in race trim, we never had an issue. We saw some others have left rear problems, but it’s something we didn’t expect at all.’(Team Chevy)(7-13-2014)
