Gluck: Jimmie Johnson's win at Charlotte should put rest of field on notice

CONCORD, N.C. — When it’s time to pop bottles and douse crew members in champagne, team owner Rick Hendrick usually sits it out and lets others do the celebrating.

But on Sunday, after Hendrick Motorsports snapped a nearly seven-month dry spell and returned to victory lane, the team owner was in a mood to join in the fun.

"It was like our first race again," he said.

The happiness was easy to understand. After a miserable summer for the entire team, Jimmie Johnson’s victory in the Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway was the equivalent of Hendrick kicking down the door of an exclusive party for playoff contenders.

You can imagine the worried looks on the competition's faces.

Uh oh. Johnson is back. Hendrick is back. And that's scary after months of thinking the No. 48 wasn't as much of a threat as usual.

"We might lie to you a little bit and act like everything is OK, but behind closed doors we’re realists, and we were not happy with where our cars were during the summer," Johnson said. "Definitely very optimistic now. You get this machine at Hendrick Motorsports rolling and some momentum on our side, and we can accomplish a lot."

The most obvious of those accomplishments would be Johnson’s record-tying seventh career championship. It all seems possible after his 78th career victory and third win of 2016 — but the first since Auto Club Speedway on March 20.

Johnson’s career-long 24-race winless streak is over, and now he’s on to the third round of the Chase for the first time in the current format.

"We can't sit back and celebrate too much on this," Johnson said. "We've got to buckle down and get to work and keep advancing our race cars. But this does buy us a couple weeks of freedom."

Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus can go into experimental mode next week at Kansas Speedway while the rest of the competition frets about getting a victory before the unpredictable cutoff race at Talladega Superspeedway.

That could be a big advantage for the next 1.5-mile track, at Texas Motor Speedway in November, as well as the championship race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. After all, Johnson and Knaus showed up with speed — along with all of Hendrick — as soon as the Chase began last month.

But despite the fast cars, the team still hadn’t closed out a victory since Johnson’s win in March. Mistakes seemed to pop up every race. That wasn't the case Sunday, as Johnson and his team finally put it all together.

"Nobody has to remind me that we hadn't won a race," Hendrick said. "You guys remind me of that every weekend, and they do on TV."

He added with a chuckle: "I think we were washed up and should have quit."

Obviously that was never a thought. Behind the scenes, the organization was furiously working to catch up with the competition — mainly the Toyotas of Joe Gibbs Racing and affiliate Furniture Row Racing, which have dominated the season.

There’s still work to be done, but Hendrick looks powerful again. Elliott led 103 laps before a crash on a restart.

The team’s No. 88 car, which was lacking in speed before Dale Earnhardt Jr. went out for the season with a concussion, didn’t show much even with Jeff Gordon. But Alex Bowman started second and was running in third Sunday when his day ended with a crash caused by a blown tire.

"I think Jimmie is going to be strong all the way to the end," Hendrick teammate Kasey Kahne told Paste BN Sports after finishing third. "And Chase was as good as Jimmie from what I could see until he got in that wreck. So that’s great for those guys. I hope they push all the way through Homestead and win it."

It certainly seems more realistic now that Johnson has the cars to match his talent again. He described Hendrick’s improvement manifesting itself in cars that are smooth and consistent, where he doesn’t "have to scare myself to put up a good lap time."

"And if I do need to go out there and scare myself and pull away ... I can do it and get rewarded for it," he said.

Follow Jeff Gluck on Twitter @jeff_gluck.

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