Jimmie Johnson: What It Takes To Earn Respect In NASCAR

Jimmie Johnson had some interesting comments about gaining respect in NASCAR on Friday at Darlington Raceway, so we’re passing them along here:

”In any sport, you’ve got to come in and earn the respect. Regardless of lower divisions; if you look at the NFL and regardless of your draft pick or whatever it is, you don’t show up to the pro leagues and have respect. You’ve done a lot of great things to get you there; but it’s always a different pace, a different level of effort in either.

There’s just a lot of change when you get to the top level of any division, of any sport. And you have to go out and earn that respect. And that’s something that I took a lot of pride in coming up through the ranks. I took a couple of licks before I passed one out.

There are people that come into any sport and I’ve seen it in ours, where they expect to have the respect out of the gate. And they act in a certain way. And it makes life tough for them. But, you just have to go out there and earn it. It’s just the way it works.”