‘Hey Ward? It’s Jimmie.’ Johnson Recalls The Time Burton Chewed Him Out

In 2003, second-year driver Jimmie Johnson won both races at New Hampshire but ran into a problem with veteran Ward Burton.

During one of the Loudon races, Johnson had lost his track position on pit road, forcing him to drive back up through the field. But when Johnson reached Burton’s car, he unintentionally wrecked the now-retired driver.

Burton was pissed. Here’s how Johnson told the story today when asked about the driver etiquette for calling a competitor after an on-track incident:

I got on the 22 and spun him out and he crashed. He spent the rest of the afternoon trying to crash me. So then, obviously I knew he was upset. And I tried reaching out to him all week long and I couldn’t catch him, or he wouldn’t take my call.

Finally, I got his cell phone number. When I (called) his cell phone, he answered and didn’t know the number. ... Once I told him who I was, I think he was cussing at me.

He went on and on for a minute just yelling and screaming. It’s tough to understand Ward to start with, but I believe they were cuss words. He just vented and finally I’m like, ‘Do you feel better? Can we talk about this?’ You know, it wasn’t intentional and you try to move on.

There’s a wide variety of ways that it can be handled. I guess at the end of the day if you can’t make contact with someone, you hope that they know you tried. And you hope that your history with that driver or your reputation within the sport speaks for itself and that you can move through those issues.