NASCAR notes: Johnson wary of Texas

En route to winning NASCAR's points championship, Jimmie Johnson was tough at Texas last fall, but he's a bit leery about what to expect this time down there.

"Anything we did last year doesn't apply with this car, especially on these big tracks," Johnson said of Sunday's Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.

"Some of the same philosophies apply, as far as aero and mechanical. But the way you get there is different, with the design of this car and the areas we have to work with. NASCAR has tightened that box and the areas we can work. We've needed the track time, we needed to work through some things. We needed more seat time, with feeling different combinations and what we can put under the car, to find a foundation to build off.

"We spent a lot of time doing that the last few weeks, and hopefully what we have learned will pan out and show up in Texas.

"The race we had in Martinsville, that was to be expected. If we have a good run in Texas, then our testing paid off .... We are just catching up. Thankfully it is a long year."

-- PIPE DREAM: The April Fool's Day news release from Texas Motor Speedway's Eddie Gossage was a cool one:

He "announced plans" for construction of a massive retractable roof, scheduled for completion by 2011, at a cost of $900 million, with a design an air-conditioning and heating system and an elaborate exhaust system to remove fumes and smoke generated by the cars."

"It's only appropriate that we announced such an outlandish project like this on the first day of April," Gossage said.

-- CHILDRESS READY?: If a Chevy team can upend the Roush Fords at Texas this week, likely it will have to be from the Richard Childress camp. Jeff Burton is the most likely, since he won this race last spring, and he's atop the point standings this season.

But teammate Clint Bowyer might be a contender too, though his only decent finish was a fifth a few years back.

"We've run well at Texas, every time ... but for some reason we've had a lot of bad luck," Bowyer said. "But I enjoy the track, and we did the tire test for Goodyear, so hopefully we'll be ahead of the game."

What to expect?

"I think the race will be a lot like what we saw at California and Las Vegas," Bowyer said. "There are going to be cars that separate themselves from the rest of field, and a lot of cars that will run the exact same speeds."

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)