Johnson has suffered a minor slump in recent months, failing to win a race for 10 weeks and falling to seventh in the points. But his two most recent victories – the 51st and 52nd of his career – have vaulted him back into second in the championship, 105 points behind leader Kevin Harvick. Johnson said that at this stage of the season he’s more interested in collecting points than winning races.

“A few weeks ago I was in a position where points were really important,” he explained. “You can’t take where you are for granted. Even though we’re now second in the points, three races ago we were seventh and 12th place wasn’t that far away. So a lot can still change and we need to be collecting points to make sure we’re in The Chase [for the Cup].

“I think it’s more important to win in The Chase than it is to win now. If I could pick when I would win my next race, I’d rather it be in The Chase. I think there’s a big message in that.

“For us, we’re still looking for a little more speed, so my goal now is to be smart, to try to keep finishing in the top five, learn about our cars and make sure we can be winning when The Chase comes around. If we have an opportunity to win a race we’ll certainly step up and try. But I think there’s more damage to be done if you’re driving over your means, so I’m looking for consistency.”

Johnson is NASCAR’s most complete driver today. He’s eminently quick, almost invariably a contender in the closing stages of most races, and is a cool, analytical player capable of working with crew chief Chad Knaus to get the best from his car. Before winning in New Hampshire Johnson said he would love to test or race an Indycar or a Formula 1 car.

“I really would enjoy it,” he said. “The way I grew up, Indycar racing was really the only outside exposure I had. I dreamt of racing in the Indy 500 and would go to the Long Beach Grand Prix and hope that I could be on that circuit racing at some point. So I’d love to try an Indycar or an F1 car. My path has taken me a different way and I think it would be very difficult to get an F1 test. But maybe by putting it out there it could happen.

“To experience driving an Indycar or F1 car on a road course would be really good for me. Running the Grand-Am car has helped me be a better road course driver, and it would be another step in an F1 or Indycar to see things at a faster speed in the braking zones and the capabilities of the car, how it turns in.”

There’s no doubt that Jimmie Johnson is the fastest, sharpest American driver in action today. If Bernie Ecclestone and FOTA’s team owners are serious about breaking back into the American market, they should be leaping off the marks to put together an F1 test for Johnson in a top car. When will it happen Bernie?

Villeneuve won both the CART Indycar races he started in 1994 and ‘95 at the majestic four-mile Road America circuit near Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin and was confident he would do well there in a stock car. Sure enough, Villeneuve qualified second to Nationwide series frontrunner Carl Edwards and was the only man to challenge him in the race.

The Nationwide series, NASCAR’s second-division championship, has run a race in Montréal for the past two years. This was the first time it has raced at Elkhart Lake, however, and Villeneuve hoped his experience there would give him a chance of victory, as well as helping to prepare him for his next NASCAR outing.

Jacques’s confidence proved to be well placed as he came close to matching the pace of Edwards’ superior Roush Ford. Villeneuve was particularly impressive under braking for Turn 5 at the end of Elkhart’s long backstretch, and for Canada Corner further round the circuit where he smoothly out-braked Edwards on one occasion. In the closing laps Jacques put on a spectacular show as his car’s damaged front bodywork rubbed against his left front tyre, peeling off slices of rubber and issuing clouds of smoke under braking.

Still Villeneuve hung on as best he could to Edwards and appeared to have second place wrapped up before his engine began to fail with two laps to go. He was able to keep going, limping home 25th, but showed everyone in NASCAR that he knows a thing or two about road racing.

Villeneuve now has a couple of months to prepare for the Nationwide race at his home track – the only race other than the Canadian GP run at le Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Jacques ran in last year’s Nationwide race in Montréal, finishing fourth amid a rainstorm, so he’ll be a big part of the promotion for this year’s race and may be ready to challenge Edwards, who won in Canada last year.

A big crowd turned out for the race then, and with Villeneuve showing well at Elkhart Lake there’s every chance even more fans will buy tickets this year. It’s interesting that, despite its decline in the marketplace in recent years, NASCAR continues to expand northward with the races in Montréal and Road America.

In time, it would be no surprise to see either one or both of these races become first-division Sprint Cup events. If it happens in Montréal, it will be the first Sprint Cup race run outside the United States, and we may well have Jacques Villeneuve’s enthusiastic presence in the field to thank for making it happen.

Johnson was the man to beat in California, leading 101 of the race’s 250 laps, but he was running no better than fifth in the closing stages when a yellow flag came out as he was pulling into his pit for his final stop. The yellow was a stroke of luck, allowing him to rejoin the race in first place.

The final restart came with 26 laps to go and Johnson took off in the lead, chased hard by Richard Childress team-mates Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton. Harvick tried to pass Johnson with three laps to go but got sideways and brushed the wall, then spent the final laps battling for second place with Burton. Harvick edged Burton by a nose to lead the championship points.

“Today, fortune came our way,” Johnson admitted. “When we hit pitroad and the caution came out it gave us track position. We lost the handle on the car in the second half of the race. We were making gains and coming back but a lot of other guys were ahead of us and it was going to be tough to pass them. But then we got that break and I drove my butt off.

“We finally got the car turning at the end of the race,” Johnson added. “It was a little loose and Harvick was coming, but then he hit the wall. Kevin and I raced really hard all day and had a lot of fun.”

Harvick had led 70 laps but lost track position in the middle of the race when he broke the pitlane speed limit, which earned him a drive-through penalty.

“The #48 saw me coming and he moved up the track,” said Harvick. “When I got behind him I lost the nose and got into the wall. But the car ran good all day and the crew did a great job. I got that speeding penalty on pitroad and we should never have been in that position, but we made it back up.”

Mark Martin was fourth in another Hendrick Chevrolet, followed by Joey Logano in one of Joe Gibbs Racing’s Toyotas. Daytona 500 winner Jamie McMurray qualified on pole, followed by Earnahardt-Ganassi team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya. McMurray didn’t enjoy a strong race, falling back at the start and eventually finishing 17th, while Montoya took the lead and set the pace through the opening 29 laps only to blow his engine.

McMurray was in sixth place for two of the last three restarts but was second for the final restart and, helped by Greg Biffle pushing him, was able to pass Kevin Harvick and come through to score the biggest win of his career. He led only the race’s last two laps – the fewest of any Daytona 500 victor.

McMurray, 33, lost his ride with Roush-Fenway Racing last year but was picked up by Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing, where he replaced Martin Truex Jr as Juan Pablo Montoya’s team-mate. McMurray showed his potential by finishing second to Harvick in the previous weekend’s Budweiser Shootout before stealing victory in the 500.

“It’s unbelievable,” a tearful McMurray said. “I can’t express what it means. I’m so thankful to Chip and Felix and Bass Pro Shops for taking a chance on me and letting me come back. It’s a dream, it really is. I spun the tyres on the restart but Greg helped me out a lot. It’s just a gamble which line you choose to get the biggest run and Greg gave me an unbelievable push down the backstretch. Then I saw the #88 car [Dale Earnhardt Jr] behind me and I thought, ‘Oh no!’ because he had a good car and the Earnhardts have won a lot of races at Daytona.”

Earnhardt Jr came rocketing through from 10th on the final restart to finish a rousing second. It was his best result since winning at Michigan in 2008. “If there was enough room for the radiator to fit, you just held the gas down and prayed for the best,” he said. “It was a lot of fun. We all wiggled through there but Jamie got away from us. It was frustrating to come that close.”

Biffle looked a likely winner in the closing stages but fell to third. He ran among the leaders most of the way and led 27 laps. “I feel good about helping Jamie get clear and get out front,” he said of the final restart. “I just wish I could have waited until the backstretch to make my run on him. I had a huge run going and I just couldn’t clear him. I tried on the frontstretch and gave Junior and all the guys an opportunity to get back up beside us. I just made my move too soon.”

Another favourite to win was Harvick, who led more laps (41) than anyone else and seized the lead on the penultimate restart before fading to seventh. “It was wild,” he said. “The #99 car [Carl Edwards] went to the middle and jammed it all up. He didn’t really know where he was going. I just wish we had somebody behind us who knew how to draft.”

The race was delayed for more than two hours by a hole in the track in turn two that took shape midway through the race. The first delay occurred about two-thirds of the way into the 500 while the track’s maintenance staff tried to repair the damage. The race eventually took a total of seven hours to run and many fans left during the repairs, so it was a difficult start to the NASCAR season.

Gordon, 37, has been racing Cup cars for 17 years and has now won 82 races. One more victory and he will tie with Cale Yarborough for fifth place on NASCAR’s all-time winners’ list. Two more wins and Gordon will move into an existing tie with Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip for third place, behind only Richard Petty and David Pearson. Gordon won the last of his four titles in 2001 and was second to Johnson in ’07, but last year he finished a disappointed seventh in the points and failed to win a race for the first time in 16 years.

So it was a pleasure for Gordon to break his drought at Texas. It is one of only two NASCAR tracks (Homestead-Miami is the other) where Jeff had not won and it’s also a track he disliked, until last weekend at least. “What made winning at Texas so important was that was a track where we were weak,” said Gordon. “It’s a very different track the way the banking falls off the corners and it’s a place I’ve struggled to get a good feel for. We weren’t that good last weekend either, but the team worked away at it and the car was great on Sunday.”

In the end Gordon was helped by his pit crew, who ran a superb stop and enabled him to lead the field for the final restart. He drove home to win the 500-mile race by half a second from Johnson, who struggled in the early stages but came on strong at the finish.

“I saw Jimmie was third on the restart and you just never count those guys out,” said Gordon. “That’s the sign of a great team, a championship-calibre team. Jimmie is an aggressive driver and I saw him battling with [Tony] Stewart. My car was so good on the restarts no matter who was behind me, whether it was Stewart or [Carl] Edwards or Jimmie. Our real shot at it was to go as hard as I could.

“I knew we had 25 or 26 laps to go, and then with about 10 or 12 laps to go I felt my car starting to give up. I saw Jimmie in my mirror making [up] a bit of a ground and I got a little nervous. But I was able to put five or six really good laps together where I didn’t make any mistakes and keep a pretty decent gap, so that the lapped cars didn’t affect us too much.”

Crew chief Steve Letarte has been lambasted by many of Gordon’s fans for their hero’s failure to win over the last year and a half, so he was as delighted as his driver. “It’s huge, especially at a place you’ve never won at,” said Letarte. “It’s a gigantic relief. That place has really been an Achilles Heel for us. Jeff struggles to get the feeling there and we have very little confidence to put a set-up on the car that we believe is fast. So you kind of spiral and bounce off one another.

“But the whole weekend went real well. We weren’t that good on Saturday, but the guys worked really hard, the engineers put their heads together and we made some good changes for Sunday. Jeff drove a great race and the pit crew really came through at the end and gave us track position. It’s a great relief to win like we did with a fast race car and to put in a real team effort.”
NASCAR’s Sprint Cup resumes with a Saturday night race on April 18 at the one-mile Phoenix International Raceway oval.