Sonoma: Jimmie Johnson preview

Primary chassis No. 543 was last piloted from the pole to a 12th-place finish at Watkins Glen International last August.

Johnson drove backup chassis No. 442 to a seventh-place finish at Watkins Glen in August 2008.

WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO YOU TO WIN ON A ROAD COURSE? "It would mean a lot. Man, every year, since the start of the No. 48 team, we've tested more for road courses than any other specific race track. I continue to run the Grand Am series when I can to help. I feel like last year, we were close. We tend to qualify well, but fade in the race some and last year was kind of the reverse of that. We qualified decent and had some troubles early in the race but rebounded and came through and ended up fourth. I have a lot of confidence but at the same time, after eight years of trying, I'm hopeful we have overturned a stone that we have missed in the past. I don't think we have forgotten any area or missed something, but we'll go out and give it a shot and see what we can do and I am ready mentally, physically and we did some testing. I think we found a couple of small things that will bring speed to the cars."

-source: gmrm