12 Questions with Jimmie Johnson

Jeff Gluck | USA TODAY Sports

Our series of weekly NASCAR driver interviews continues with Jimmie Johnson, the six-time champion who currently is tied with Kyle Busch for the most wins in the Sprint Cup Series. Johnson and his No. 48 team head to Pocono Raceway this week, where he has won three times.

Q: If NASCAR allowed you to listen to music while you were racing, would you want to?

A: (Laughs) I mean, I wouldn’t mind it. But I can say through experience that I’ve been to the Bondurant (driving) school in Phoenix a few times and the radios work in those cars, and it’s funny because you go slower every time. It doesn’t take much to lose a tenth (of a second) or two, and I’d kind of get into the music more than driving the car.

So it doesn’t sound like a good idea then.

Well, it’s different for everybody. I slow down every time (crew chief) Chad (Knaus) talks to me on the radio and I talk back – and I know other guys don’t. So I think it’s more of an individual thing.

Q: Where did your first paycheck come from?

A: Working summer construction jobs – although I guess that was cash. So my first paycheck was at a shock company. I was in the back boxing shocks and getting them ready to ship. A friend of ours owned the shock company – Doetsch Tech. I was probably 11 or 12, somewhere in there.

I wanted to buy a Jet Ski, and my dad told me if I worked all summer, he’d match what I made at my job. So I got to buy my Jet Ski, which was very cool and rewarding, but unfortunately the season was over by the time I saved up for it, so I couldn’t go ride it until the next spring. That was way too long staring at it in the garage.

Q: Who is an autograph you got as a kid that seemed to be a big deal to you at the time?

A: I never got one. Never got an autograph. I did get some stickers from Don Prudhomme – we went to the Pomona drags and I vaguely remember the swagger he had. There were so many people interested in him and around him, and he was firing the car off in the pits. He spotted me and my dad and gave me some stickers.

We had a little trailer we towed behind our van as we traveled the country racing dirt bikes, and I had stickers on the trailer. I thought it was so cool he came over to us that I put his stickers on my trailer and I think I even put one of them on my helmet at one point in time.

Q: Where’s a place you’ve never been that you’d like to go visit?

A: It sounds crazy, but we spend so much time trying to leave the U.S. to travel – and we’ve seen some beautiful, amazing places – but I want to go through the redwood forest. I want to go through Northern California in a car and also really hit the national parks. I’d love to see Mt. Rushmore someday.

There’s stuff here in our own backyard and I don’t know why we never look at (going there). We think we’ve got to fly somewhere far to be on vacation.

Q: Do people ever accuse you of being addicted to your phone?

A: Yes. My wife (Chani) for sure.

Is she right?

Yeah, I guess so. I probably don’t want to admit it at times. There are definitely some work-related items that come in, and if you get a little window in time, of course you want to check some (social media) feeds. And I love photos, so I’m on my camera a lot editing pictures and stuff like that.

Q: If a genie promised you another championship in exchange for never being able to do your favorite hobby again, would you accept that offer?

A: Wow. (Thinks for awhile) I think my hobby is driving the car, so in that sense, I’d be giving up my sport. So I don’t know. But I’m much closer to a “yes” than I was 10 years ago, if that helps. (Laughs)

Q: What’s your preferred method of dealing with an angry driver after a race?

A: Get in touch with them somehow. It usually ends up being a phone call. But I’ve been in a situation where a guy wouldn’t take my phone call for a whole week. That was Ward Burton at New Hampshire (in 2003). I’d call his cell and he’d answer and hang up. He was pissed.

I finally got his office number and convinced the secretary to put him on the phone. And when he finally got on the phone, I know he was cussing at me, but with that thick accent and as mad as he was, it took awhile for us to actually understand each other. (Laughs)

Q: Do you ever get mistaken for another driver or celebrity?

A: No, not mistaken for someone else. But my name has caused some issues coming up through the ranks, because whenever I tried to book anything on the phone like a hotel, people would joke, “Oh, you’re the football coach.” That’s about the closest thing I had.

What’s funny though is I have met Jimmy Johnson and he’s like, “Man, you screwed it all up. Everyone spelled my name right for years and now they’re getting it wrong.” I said, “Now you know what I’ve been dealing with my whole life!”

Q: If you had a time machine and you could travel to any year and race, where would you go?

A: I’d probably want to go back to the '70s or '80s. The sport was such a lifestyle for the people involved – traveling from track to track, state to state. Everybody’s reason for being in the sport was passion. The older years just seem interesting to me. There’s that nostalgic piece that’s there.

And this has been such a hot topic lately, but I never had the chance to race against (Dale) Earnhardt. So I would have liked to go back to whenever he had his best year in the 3 so I could have a shot to race against him.

Q: Would you rather have the ability to fly or be invisible?

A: Fly, for sure.

Why’s that?

I’ve just always had that in my mind since I was a kid. I don’t know if it was cartoons or Superman or what. But I still today look at birds and go, “Man, they’ve got it made up there.” (Laughs)

Q: I’ve been asking each person to give me a question for the next interview. The last interview was with Aric Almirola, and he wanted to know: What do you do when you’re stuck in your motorhome for three days in the rain like at Kentucky?

A: Well, at Kentucky I had a brand new bus. So I spent a lot of time getting organized and purging things out that made the transfer from the old bus to the new bus. It’s kind of like moving. You don’t realize all the junk you had until you move and then it’s sitting there with piles and piles of stuff. So at Kentucky, I did stay busy.

Q: And do you have a question I can ask the next driver? It’s Regan Smith.

A: How much fun did he have subbing for me when (Johnson’s daughter) Lydia was born and he had the pleasure of working with Chad at Richmond (in 2013)? (Laughs)

Q: Finally, how did this interview go on a scale of 1-10?

A: Oh, definitely an 8 or a 9. (Laughs)

Follow Gluck on Twitter @jeff_gluck

PHOTOS: Behind the wheel with Jimmie Johnson