NASCAR: Johnson Holds Off Busch for Richmond Win

Hendrick Motorsports has now won all four "Car of Tomorrow" races and Chevrolet has won 9 of 10 races this season.

Jimmie Johnson edged out Hendrick Racing teammate Kyle Busch by 0.723 sec. to win Sunday's Crown Royal Presents The Jim Stewart 400 at Richmond International Raceway. Photo courtesy: rir.com

RICHMOND, VA - Jimmie Johnson edged out Hendrick Racing teammate Kyle Busch by 0.723 sec. to win Sunday's Crown Royal Presents The Jim Stewart 400 at Richmond International Raceway.

Rounding out the top 5 were Denny Hamlin, Jeff Gordon, and Kurt Busch.

An ecstatic Johnson said, "This means the world to me to win here. We haven't been that strong here. It reminds me of Indy last year where we came back and were able to beat a track that had been tough on us. We had to learn the right rhythm for this track. It was some awesome racing with my teammate Kyle Busch."

Busch remarked "If you beat me, you get it. If I beat you, I take it back. That was a good run for the Kellogg's, Carquest Impala S.S. We struggled in qualifying. The restart before I was better than he was and I got a good start and got in one and two and got a jump on everybody. But the caution, the last caution came out again. I think he would have caught us anyway. He was better overall than we were. Still a good day for Hendrick Motorsports. one, two, four, I believe.

Regularly scheduled to be run on Saturday evening, Sunday's race took place under a beautiful, cloudless 61° sky.

Although 12 laps had been run under caution on Saturday, NASCAR officials voided those laps and ran the full 400 laps Sunday.

Officials stated that since the racers had never taken the green flag only, on Saturday, the race had not officially started.

Teams were not allowed to make any adjustments to their machines or add fuel since this was a so called "Impound Race" (meaning no adjustments after qualifying).

For this reason, officials declared that a "Competition Yellow" would be implemented on or about lap 40. This would allow teams to assess the adjustments needed considering the difference in conditions from Saturday night to Sunday afternoon.

The "Competition Yellow" was thrown on lap 40, with all drivers heading to pit road for fuel, tires and chassis adjustments.

Jamie McMurray ran into trouble on lap 57 when his left front tire shredded. He lost a lap trying to get onto pit road. The team lost even more time repairing suspension damage caused by the flailing rubber.

Tony Raines grabbed the lead on lap 63 from Pole sitter Jeff Gordon for two laps.

Elliot Sadler brought out the 4th caution of the day on lap 103 when he spun coming out of turn four.

During this round of pit stops, Denny Hamlin made up two spots, moving up to second. Greg Biffle improved 4 spots up to 7th, while Dale Earnhardt Jr. lost seven places, dropping down to ninth.

On lap 119, Juan Pablo Montoya and Johnny Sauter tangled in turn 2.

It was a case of hard racing that ended with both cars sliding up into the wall, sustaining light damage to the rear end of their machines. Montoya didn't lose a lap, but did drop to 29th placed on the track. Sauter was forced to make an additional pit stop to remove a cordless reciprocating saw that had lodged in the bodywork.

Sauter had returned to competition before his crewman could remove it from the car. Amazingly, the Dewalt product still worked after bouncing off the asphalt for an entire lap. Sauter ended up losing five laps due to the incident.

Following this caution, a thrilling dual for the lead ensued between #24 Gordon, #11 Hamlin and 5-time Richmond winner (Cup and Busch series) Kevin Harvick. Harvick was able to wrestle the lead from the other contenders after 5 laps of cut-and-thrust dicing.

NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series championship contender Jeff Burton suffered an engine failure after 139 laps. The South Boston, VA native lamented, "This car was really fast. You can't win championships with things like this."

After a long stretch of green flag laps, the front runners began making pit stops on lap 205. As the leaders cycled through their stops, Harvick came out in front again, with the Busch brothers (Kyle and Kurt) moving up to second and third. Hendrick Racing teammates Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon filled out the top 5.

J.J. Yeley made contact with the wall on lap 250 bringing out another caution period.

Of more important consequence was the incident that happened on pit road during this caution.

As leader Kevin Harvick exited his pit, rookie David Ragan was trying to enter his own pit box. Harvick drove into the side of Ragan's machine, spinning the Ford into his own pit box, facing the wrong direction.

Ragan's crew went ahead and serviced the lightly damaged car where it came to rest, then turned it around so Ragan could continue the race. Harvick on the other hand, was forced to make extra stops to fix the right-front damage to his Chevrolet.

Harvick restarted in 17th place, the last car on the lead lap.

After the race, Harvick recounted what happened: "We just didn't communicate well. Everything just happened at once. It was probably good for the fans that we wrecked because it wouldn't have been a very exciting race. Our car was really good."

On lap 276, David Gilliland crashed his #38 M & M's Ford on the back straight after bouncing off of Johnny Benson's machine exiting turn 2. About half of the front runners headed to pit road for service. Of the 17 cars on the lead lap, 8 chose not to pit.

On the lap 284 restart, Jeff Green slid into the Dale Earnhardt Jr. in turn 3 spinning out the Budweiser machine. There was light damage to the two cars and amazingly, no one else ran into the two cars which were running right in the middle of the pack.

David Stremme was running a strong 9th on lap 304 when Kasey Kahne pinched him up against the wall at the Start/Finish line.

Kahne got the worse end of the deal, getting turned up into the wall, knocking the right front wheel off the top suspension wishbone. Kahne was forced to head to the garage, out of the race.

NASCAR was forced to throw a caution for debris in turn one on lap 316.

With a number of incidents there, and cars sliding around, it was decided to slow the race and clean up the track. All of the leaders pitted for what was thought to be the final time of the race. Dave Blaney gambled by taking only right-side tires and moved all the way up to third from 13th before the stop.

The tenth caution of the afternoon was thrown on lap 337 for debris on the back straight.

The top 10 cars stayed out on the track. The next ten cars on the lead lap all pitted, including #20 Tony Stewart, #17 Matt Kenseth and #16 Greg Biffle.

Another caution waved for the 11th time when Kenny Wallace stalled his machine on the back straight.

After going green again, Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch raced side-by-side until a lap 356 caution. Jeff Green had a replay of his earlier incident with Dale Jr. when he slip up the racetrack into the side of Greg Biffle, causing the 3M Ford to slam into the turn 4 wall. Since Kyle had his bumper slightly ahead of Johnson's, Busch was awarded the leader's position.

The 13th caution of the afternoon flew on lap 364 when #40 Dave Stremme made contact with the wall.

The restart from this caution period lead to a, near super-speedway style, "Big One," as at least 7 cars were involved in a wreck on the front straight.

It all began in turn three as Dave Blaney slid up the track after entering the turn too hot. In turn four, Blaney tried to get back onto the racing line. At that moment, Ward Burton was running side-by-side with Ricky Rudd.

Blaney nudged Burton into Rudd, who spun head first into the outside wall. Behind them Tony Stewart, #42 Montoya, Martin Truex Jr. and A.J. Allmendinger were all involved in the wreck. Fortunately, all but Rudd and Burton were able to continue.

The 20-lap run to the checkered flag was dominated by Jimmie Johnson. He quickly passed Kyle Busch and pulled out a half-second lead with 10 laps to go.

Over the final laps, Denny Hamlin was able to wrestle the third spot from Jeff Gordon while Ryan Newman came out ahead in a three way battle for sixth with #29 Harvick and #20 Stewart.

Hendrick Motorsports has now won all four "Car of Tomorrow" races and Chevrolet has won 9 of 10 races this season.

Johnson is now second in points, 211 behind leader Jeff Gordon (1691).

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