Johnson Wins at Lowe's Motor Speedway

Jimmie Johnson Photo Courtesy: armyofmom.com

CONCORD, N.C. - So many things went wrong for Jimmie Johnson at the one place he counts on everything going right. In the end, the outcome remained the same. Johnson extended his dominance at Lowe's Motor Speedway — considered by many to be his own personal playground — by winning the Nextel All-Star Challenge and its $1 million prize on Saturday night.

"Good job driver! Good job!" crew chief Chad Knaus radioed. "This is your house!"

Indeed it is.

Johnson has seven wins here since 2002, including three straight Coca-Cola 600s and the 2003 All-Star race. He'll go for his fifth straight points victory next Sunday.

"We get it right when the money is on the line," Johnson said. "I can't say enough for this team."

This one capped a lucrative week for Johnson, the Nextel Cup points leader, who signed a three-year contract extension that keeps him at Hendrick Motorsports through 2010. That's bad news for the competition, especially when Johnson is racing at Lowe's.

"He's just really, very comfortable here and Chad really pays attention to detail," said teammate Jeff Gordon, who finished third. "That's just a deadly combination to try to beat. That's what we are all chasing right now."

But Johnson had to overcome his share of problems in this one.

He was caught speeding on pit road and narrowly avoided going a lap down when he stopped for his penalty. Then he came out on the losing end of the inversion, which flips the field after the first segment. Only the top 10 cars were inverted, and Johnson was stuck in 11th.

"I had some adversity I had to overcome," he said. "The speeding on pit road. But as soon as I knew I was still on the lead lap after I passed through on pit road, then I knew I still had a shot.

"Then I missed the inversion by one spot. But we got it right when the money was on the line."

Kevin Harvick, who won the second segment of the event, took only two tires on the final pit stops while everyone else took four. It was a risky gamble, and Johnson wasted no time passing him for the lead when the final 20-lap sprint began.

Johnson then pulled away and Harvick finished a whopping 1.729 seconds behind. Still, Harvick was pleased with the finish.

"Our main goal was to finish. We were 0-for-5, but we were able to avoid the wreck fest," Harvick said. "The 48 had us covered, and I thought even after everybody wrecked, we were still only the second-best car out there."

Gordon was third, Carl Edwards was fourth and Ryan Newman was fifth. Bobby Labonte, Dale Jarrett, fan-vote winner Kyle Petty and Dale Earnhardt Jr. were the only other drivers to finish on the lead lap.

Scott Riggs, who raced his way into the event by winning the preliminary race hours earlier, finished one lap down in 10th. He was the last car to finish the race, as the other 10 drivers were knocked out of the race.

Seven good cars were eliminated on a crash during a restart in the second segment. Kasey Kahne and Mark Martin were side-by-side at the front of the pack when Kahne seemed to lose control of his Dodge coming out of the second turn and wiggled directly into Martin's driver side.

The two cars bumped and banged for a few feet, then slid into the wall.

"We got to the front there and I just was trying to race with Mark and just lost grip," Kahne said. "It's tough, there's not a lot of grip out there. Next thing I knew I was backwards, and that's not good when you are in front like that."

Martin, the defending champion, didn't have a chance.

"I can't tell from that angle, but it looks like Kasey just slid into me," Martin said as he watched a replay of the accident.

Martin, who does not plan to run a full Nextel Cup schedule next season, vowed to return for another All-Star race in 2007.

"I'll be here," he promised.

Kyle Busch, Jeremy Mayfield, Jamie McMurray and Greg Biffle couldn't avoid the carnage. Stewart did slide through, only to get hit by Mayfield's careening car.

Irritated with the wreckage, Stewart drove by Mayfield and revved his engine in anger as he passed. Mayfield then stopped by to assure Stewart he wasn't at fault.

"I just told him I didn't have nothing to do with it," Mayfield said. "We're cool."

Although Stewart returned to the track, his night ended early in the final 20-lap sprint when he ran into Matt Kenseth to send them both into the wall.

"He put me in the wall head-on," Kenseth complained on his radio. "He must have drove across the bottom, and he just wrecked me. Then he flipped me the bird."

Stewart vehemently disagreed.

"That's a pretty demented view in my opinion," Stewart said. "I think he screwed up on this one. If he thinks I did that and that was my fault, he's screwed up in the head."

The accident left just nine cars on the track for the final 17 laps. Johnson was the leader on the restart and pulled away to the easy victory.

The 90-lap race was broken into three segments — with the Red Hot Chili Peppers performing a short set between the first and second legs of the race in NASCAR's attempt to give the event a true All-Star feeling

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