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Johnson wins again at Charlotte

Jimmie Johnson continued his victorious march towards his fourth consecutive Sprint Cup title with his third Chase win at Lowe's Motor Speedway

The reigning champion dominated every practice session, started from pole position and led the most laps to claim a perfect score that allows him to stretch his lead in the standing to 90 points over his Hendrick team-mate Mark Martin.

Johnson was challenged by different drivers at various stages of the race, but in the end the #48 car surged ahead when it most mattered.

In the early stages Denny Hamlin looked capable of keeping Johnson at bay since he took the lead from him on lap 71, but his victory hopes were dashed by an engine failure that brought his race to a halt before the halfway mark.

Jeff Gordon gambled twice on taking two new tyres instead of four and both times he succeeded at gaining track position. However, his grip deficit surfaced as the runs got longer and he could not keep up with his Hendrick team-mate.

Matt Kenseth led a good number of laps as did Gordon, after gambling with his tyre strategy early in the race. However it was Kasey Kahne who really showed he had something for Johnson, dominating the second half of the race.

The Richard Petty driver was able to lead the race with a gap that he built up to more than seven seconds, when the race went under green during 97 consecutive laps, between the sixth and seven caution periods of the night.

Kahne led the field into the pits for the final time on lap 291 out of the 334 scheduled. Although his team performed a quicker four-tyre change, Johnson was able to narrowly beat him out of pit road, as he made the most of the first stall he was entitled to for getting pole.

After that Jeff Gordon briefly challenged his team-mate, who was able to remain in control until the chequered flag. Behind him Gordon, Kahne and Kenseth fought for second best, while he pulled away to claim his sixth win of the season, also his sixth at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

"I thought the #9 [Kasey Kahne] had this thing in the bag," said Johnson. "On that last pitstop on when it came to the restarts we had what we needed for five or six quick laps. This thing was fast. it worked.

"The perfect weekend which is what (crew chief) Chad (Knaus) always wanted to do. Win every practice, qualifying and the race and we got it."

Kenseth struggled during the last few restarts and instead of putting the pressure on Johnson he had to fend off first Gordon and then Kenseth. In the end the Roush Fenway driver got the better of him, winning the battle for best of the rest.

"I always have a problem when I start off the front row this whole year with restarts," said Kahne. "I just spin my tyres. I try not to give it throttle and don't spin my tyres and I get pushed from behind.

"Matt (Kenseth) was up there and a couple other guys that seem to be there all night. Jimmie (Johnson) was one of them. We weren't good enough that final run. We were the best car at times, but the final run when it counted, we weren't. Jimmie showed up and beat us all."

Gordon was able to beat a charging Joey Logano to fourth place, a result that allows him to jump up to third in the Chase standing, although he is already more than a hundred points behind Johnson.

Title contenders Ryan Newman and Tony Stewart salvaged 11th and 13th places in the end, but were never in contention for victory. Newman had an incident with Greg Biffle, that brought out the final caution when he tapped the rear of Biffle's machine at the exit of Turn 4, sending him spinning through the grass.

They were among several Chase drivers who hit trouble as did former points leader Martin. The veteran damaged the front end of his car during a restart on lap 125, when he got into Juan Pablo Montoya as the inside line bunched up before the green flag waved.

Martin was able to finish on the lead lap thanks to the last few cautions, while Montoya got the worst part, as the impact from Martin damaged the right rear quarter panel of his car, causing it to be off-balance from then on.

The Colombian quickly lost a lap after the incident and then spun while struggling with an ill-handling car, being unable to recover. Before that, he had looked even faster than Johnson at one stage, running as high as second.

"They all accelerated and they all checked up," said Montoya about the incident, which has effectively cost him three spots in the Chase, where now ranks 195 points off from Johnson.

"Every time the #24 (Jeff Gordon) restarted it was the same thing. It is what it is and you've just got to move on. We had one of our fastest cars. Not much we can do. We worked as hard as we could and we did all what we thought was possible and today the best we could do was 35th.

Brian Vickers also had a night to forget, finishing right ahead of Montoya in 34th, while Carl Edwards' miserable race ended with an engine failure after he struggled with the handling of his car since the early stages of the race.

Pos  Driver             Car        Laps
 1.  Jimmie Johnson     Chevrolet  334
 2.  Matt Kenseth       Ford       334
 3.  Kasey Kahne        Dodge      334
 4.  Jeff Gordon        Chevrolet  334
 5.  Joey Logano        Toyota     334
 6.  Clint Bowyer       Chevrolet  334
 7.  Casey Mears        Chevrolet  334
 8.  Kyle Busch         Toyota     334
 9.  Martin Truex Jr    Chevrolet  334
10.  Kurt Busch         Dodge      334
11.  Ryan Newman        Chevrolet  334
12.  Brad Keselowski    Chevrolet  334
13.  Tony Stewart       Chevrolet  334
14.  Jeff Burton        Chevrolet  334
15.  David Reutimann    Toyota     334
16.  Greg Biffle        Ford       334
17.  Mark Martin        Chevrolet  334
18.  Kevin Harvick      Chevrolet  334
19.  David Stremme      Dodge      334
20.  David Ragan        Ford       334
21.  Reed Sorenson      Dodge      334
22.  Marcos Ambrose     Toyota     333
23.  AJ Allmendinger    Dodge      333
24.  Mike Bliss         Chevrolet  333
25.  David Gilliland    Toyota     333
26.  Elliott Sadler     Dodge      332
27.  Paul Menard        Ford       332
28.  Scott Speed        Toyota     332
29.  Bill Elliott       Ford       332
30.  Robby Gordon       Toyota     332
31.  Bobby Labonte      Ford       331
32.  Michael Waltrip    Toyota     331
33.  Jamie McMurray     Ford       331
34.  Brian Vickers      Toyota     330
35.  Juan Montoya       Chevrolet  330
36.  John Andretti      Chevrolet  330
37.  Terry Labonte      Toyota     329
38.  Dale Earnhardt Jr  Chevrolet  304
39.  Carl Edwards       Ford       299
40.  Sam Hornish Jr     Dodge      298
41.  Max Papis          Toyota     286
42.  Denny Hamlin       Toyota     192
43.  Joe Nemechek       Toyota     26

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