Jimmie Johnson on IndyCar oval test in Texas: ‘My first step towards the Indy 500’ – IndyStar

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Whether simply ironic or a sly jab by his newfound teammates and longtime friends, the tunes seeping through the BMW that Scott Dixon drovearound Texas Motor Speedway's tri-oval for a recon run just after 6 a.m. were all too coincidental and applicable for th45-year-old in the passenger seat.

'A change will do you good,'sang Sheryl Crow through the car's speakers. Jimmie Johnson was about to find out whether the country music legend was right.

On the day he'd make his open-wheel oval driving debut, the IndyCar rookie showed up in No Limits, Texas with a look that harkened back to his early stock car days: a clean-shaven smile that just might have been able to pass for the 26-year-old who finished sixth in his trip to the track in a NASCAR Cup series stock car back in 2002.

That day nearly two decades ago, Johnson was on the cusp of his first major stock car victory of what would be anillustrious career. Monday, all the driver of the No. 48 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda was looking for was comfort and confirmation that open-wheel oval racing future would be a proper step to one day pursue.

Not only from his words, but the emotion behind them, it's clear the first box has been checked after a six-plus-hour session with the 1.44-mile tri-oval all to himself -- after teammate Dixon turned a few laps to assure the CGR team the car was properly tuned for a revealing test day.

"The oval experience has been awesome today," Johnson said. "I learned a lot and was able to get up to speed and put up some really fast lap times. Being at a track that I've raced at in the past, one, I think was helpful, and two, the laps I ran today helped me piece together similarities between IndyCar and NASCAR, and there certainly were some differences I was able to grasp today as well.

"I needed to pretend as if I've never been here before, and then after a lot of laps, I could pull a few small things from my NASCAR days and apply them to the IndyCar. Ironically, the way you use the banking to help support the race car is much more critical in an Indy car than a Cup car, and the line is more forgiving in the Cup car as a result."

That notion has been the theme of Johnson's introduction to IndyCar, which began last July with a one-day private test with CGR on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. From the start, months before he and team officials announced a two-year deal to drive the road and street courses in the No. 48, Johnson noted just how stark the contrast was between even the basics of driving a stock car and open-wheel machine.

As he continued to press on through additional offseason testing with Ganassi, and even running lower formula carsalongside 15-year-olds to provide extra open-wheel seat time, Johnson's mantra was that 2021 would be about 'unlearning' his stock car ways.

Oval racing, he said for several months, was to be put on the backburner while he adjusted to the feel of the car, and his wife, Chani, came to terms with the safety levels of a open-wheel cockpit.

More on Jimmie Johnson's rookie season in IndyCar:

As expected though, Johnson's curiosity continued to grow. For the first time, he watched up-close-and-personal at the May 30 Indianapolis 500 as part of the NBC Sports crew. Not only was stepping out of the race car and handing it over to his oval-only teammate Tony Kanaan delivering some major 'fear of missing out' vibes, but Johnson's competitive drive started to kick in. As one of the most decorated racecar drivers of any discipline, he wondered what giving the Greatest Spectacle in Racing a try might be like.

But first, needed to get the taste of just being on an oval -- any oval, really -- to get the sense of what he'd be stepping into. Though not nearly an identical track to IMS in oval racing parlance, Johnson and Ganassi officials had eyed TMS as the location of his first step. Only recently did a date open, allowing the team to switch gears to from a previously-planned test dateat Homestead-Miami Speedway, where IndyCar hasn't raced in more than a decade.

Instead, Johnson was able to tackle a track where Dixon has won four of the last eight IndyCar races, with the trio of Ganassi driving coaches (and four-time series champ driver) Dario Franchitti, Kanaan and Dixon on-hand. With such a test day complete, it's now up to IndyCar to parse through the test results and potentially give Johnson the green light to run a likely series tire test on the IMS oval after the completion of the 2021 season.

From there, Johnson could run through the Indy 500 Rookie Orientation Program, much like Team Penske rookie Scott McLaughlin did last fall, in order to be additional steps ahead come next May, should Johnson, Ganassi and company decide to pursue a 2022 Indy 500 run.

"Today, really, is my first step towards the Indy 500 and potentially racing on ovals," he said. "I feel like I need to work through things that will make me comfortable with the car on-track, and more sessions on-track are needed before I can make a decision. And there's certainly more conversations with my family and Chip and our sponsors. There's a lot of moving pieces to this.

"I (need) a day or two to digest this and what the next steps might be and, do we look to go to another oval and try to get more experience working towards a race someday down the road?"

In the moment though, you could see through the wonder in his eyes andthe almost certain smile his helmet hid, along with the tone in his attempted whisper, just how much Johnson enjoyed this.

After one of his stints on-track at TMS onMonday, Johnson could be seen via a video his team recordedgiving Franchitti a double-fist pump, followed closely by a bear hug.

"Really good job. Did you have fun?" Franchitti can be heard asking Johnson.

"Oh, I had a blast, as you know," Johnson replied.

"Well you know, I just wanted to be sure. Really good job today."

There's both pride in his understudy, as well as thorough understanding in the giant task Johnson's undergone in Franchitti's voice -- perhaps related to the single season the Scotsman spent in stock car racing with Ganassi in 2008 between his two IndyCar stints.

"(Johnson's Monday oval test) would be like a person that plays cricket for the English team. That's got a bat and a ball, and going to play baseball. That's got a bat and a ball, but everything's different," Franchitti said. "I think that's the difference between a stock car and an Indy car. Everything you learn on the way up and what you learn when you're at the top in either of those fields doesn't prepare you in any way to do the other.

"In fact, if hurts you, so it's a challenging thing Jimmie is doing. But he's doing very well so far."

Email IndyStar motor sports reporter Nathan Brown atnlbrown@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter:@By_NathanBrown.

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Jimmie Johnson on IndyCar oval test in Texas: 'My first step towards the Indy 500' - IndyStar