DOVER, Del.(Sept. 26, 2010) \u2014The leading rebounder in NASCAR\u2019s Sprint Cup Series solidified his status in Sunday\u2019s AAA 400 at Dover International Speedway.<\/p>\n
Lest any of his competitors happened to forget that Jimmie Johnson will be a factor in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, Johnson gave them a smoky reminder Sunday afternoon as he rallied from last week\u2019s rocky start to the Chase at New Hampshire.<\/p>\n
Moments after beating Jeff Burton to the checkered flag by a convincing 2.637 seconds on the 1-mile concrete oval, Johnson stirred up a cloud of smoke with a burnout on the Monster Mile\u2019s asphalt apron near the entrance to the garage.
\n
\nAs the drivers he beat rolled through the gate to the garage area, they had to pass through Johnson\u2019s smoky celebration. It wasn\u2019t exactly a case of \u201ceat my dust,\u201d but it was close.<\/p>\n
\u201cMan, you are rubbing it into all these guys\u2019 faces here,\u201d crew chief Chad Knaus radioed to the driver, after Johnson completed the best-case rally from last week\u2019s 25th-place run.<\/p>\n
Indeed. Johnson won the pole, led the most laps (191) and scored maximum points (195) as he vaulted four positions to second in the Chase standings, 35 points behind ninth-place finisher Denny Hamlin, who posted a respectable result at a track that has plagued him in past Chases.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a huge weight off my shoulders that we were able to come here and win a race in the Chase, rebound from last week,\u201d said Johnson, who won for the sixth time this season, the sixth time at Dover and the third time in the past four races at the Monster Mile.<\/p>\n
With 53 Cup victories, Johnson is 10th all time, one behind Lee Petty and two behind Rusty Wallace.<\/p>\n
Johnson regained the lead from Carl Edwards on Lap 366 of 400, when Edwards brought his No. 99 Ford to pit road during a cycle of green-flag stops. Johnson pulled away from Burton over the final 35 laps.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday is a great day for us, because it shows us what we are capable of and the fact that we can win races and be competitive in this Chase,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cThis summer was hard on us\u2014there\u2019s no way around that. We had bad races and finished bad. We had good races and finished bad. So it\u2019s nice today to do things start-to-finish all weekend long on the right foot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joey Logano\u2014the only non-Chase driver in the top six\u2014finished third. Kurt Busch ran fourth, Edwards fifth and Kyle Busch sixth. Kyle Busch remained third in the standings and trails Hamlin by 45 points.<\/p>\n
Burton hadn\u2019t written off Johnson\u2019s No. 48 team after New Hampshire\u2014far from it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, they\u2019re good,\u201d he said before correcting himself. \u201cThey\u2019re not good\u2014they\u2019re great. That word is not being overused when I say that. They\u2019ve won four (championships) in a row. You\u2019re not good doing that. You have to be great to do that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve been in the hunt. They\u2019ve been in the mix. I think they\u2019re as seasoned as you can possibly be together. They fought the fights together. They haven\u2019t won every championship together. They\u2019ve lost some, too. Through losing some, you gain wisdom. Through winning some, you gain wisdom. They perform. That\u2019s what they did.<\/p>\n
\u201cI expected them to come here and perform. This is one of their best race tracks. It didn\u2019t surprise me to see them run as well as they did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Notes: A problem on the final green-flag pit stop dropped Jeff Gordon to 11th at the finish. He lost four spots in the standings to eighth, 83 points behind Hamlin. \u2026 Hamlin\u2019s 35-point lead is the largest in Chase history after two races, but no driver who has led the standings after two races has gone on to win the title. \u2026 Clint Bowyer finished 25th, three laps down, and trails Hamlin by 235 points pending the result of Wednesday\u2019s appeal of a 150-point penalty NASCAR levied against Bowyer when his race-winning car at New Hampshire failed inspection. \u2026 Tony Stewart went a lap down early and ultimately came home 21st, two laps down. After running out of fuel and finishing 24th at Loudon, Stewart is 10th in the standings, 162 points behind Hamlin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DOVER, Del.(Sept. 26, 2010) \u2014The leading rebounder in NASCAR\u2019s Sprint Cup Series solidified his status in Sunday\u2019s AAA 400 at Dover International Speedway. Lest any of his competitors happened to forget that Jimmie Johnson will be a factor in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, Johnson gave them a smoky reminder Sunday afternoon as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[15775],"class_list":["post-3455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nascar","tag-nascar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}