Johnson snatches win from Busch

The reigning champion had been similarly pushed out of the lead by the Penske driver following the final restart, Busch hitting the left-rear of Johnson's Chevrolet into Turn 3 to move up front with just a handful of laps left.

However the Hendrick Motorsports driver brought the pressure back on him and starting the penultimate lap he nudged the rear of the #2 Dodge entering Turn 1, unsettling it just enough to get on his inside and then complete the pass for victory. Busch immediately came under pressure from third-place Tony Stewart, which allowed Johnson to pull away to back-to-back wins, following his victory at Infineon Raceway last week.

"My incentive was not necessarily to pass him," said Johnson about his red-misted pursuit of Busch on the closing laps. "All I needed to do was to get to his bumper. He gave me that option by moving me out of the way. I just sat there and as I put together a good lap or two I saw that I caught him and I thought 'this is going to work out just fine, I'm going to get there with one or two [laps] to go and if I get to his bumper, I know I'm going to make the turn.'

"So I just took that approach, got in there and of course I calmed down once I got to him, just gave him a nudge and went on my way. But the laps leading up to that I had great visions of a huge spectacular crash."

Johnson had briefly led on lap 106 before a slow pitstop dropped him down to ninth place. In the last quarter of the distance and following the third caution of the day in which he pitted for two new tyres, he passed Jeff Burton for the lead as the Richard Childress Racing driver opted to stay out on used rubber. Burton immediately lost out and then collided with Kyle Busch, causing the fourth and final caution.

Stewart eventually got second from Kurt Busch on the final lap, recovering from an issue at his first stop, where his crew was unable to top the tank up with fuel. The Stewart Haas racer had to run a different sequence to the leaders, managing to get back on the lead lap at one point following a green-flag stop right before the caution came out for Kasey Kahne's Ford engine blowing up. His final charge saw him take a well deserved second, although like Johnson, he too knocked Busch out of the way.

"It was my fault sliding into Kurt," said Stewart. "That cost him a second [place]. But we just both sailed off in there and neither one of us was going to let the other one have an advantage going into [Turn] 1 there on the last lap. It was my fault. It's my responsibility as the guy on the inside to control my car and I slid up into him. So I definitely owe him one on that one."

Busch was glad to take third still, admitting he probably took a chance that did not pay off in the end.

"Driving down into Turn 3 I had all the intentions of passing [Johnson] on the inside and try to cut underneath him at the apex," said Busch. "I just got into him a little bit in the left-rear and nudged him up and was able to squeak on by.

"Your motive is always to pass the guy cleanly. You always want to make sure that when you do pass him, he's not completely upset with you and when we go race again, if he's going to go pass me at the end, and he did, he did a great job."

Jeff Gordon finished fourth following an exchange with polesitter Juan Pablo Montoya. The Colombian, who led the way for the first 36 laps, lost two spots on his final stop, dropping behind the Hendrick driver. While battling for fifth, the pair made contact, which resulted in damage to the right-front of the Earnhardt Ganassi Chevrolet.

While the four-time champion won the battle for position in the end, Montoya struggled with a bent front splitter and then got into a similar exchange with RCR's Clint Bowyer. Further contact with Red Bull's Reed Sorenson brought his race to an end against the Turn 3 wall with 18 laps remaining, while he was trying to remain on the lead lap hoping for a caution to pit for repairs.

Kevin Harvick had a quiet run to fifth place, which allowed him to remain at the top of the standings.

Pos  Driver              Car        Laps
 1.  Jimmie Johnson      Chevrolet  301
 2.  Tony Stewart        Chevrolet  301
 3.  Kurt Busch          Dodge      301
 4.  Jeff Gordon         Chevrolet  301
 5.  Kevin Harvick       Chevrolet  301
 6.  Ryan Newman         Chevrolet  301
 7.  Clint Bowyer        Chevrolet  301
 8.  Dale Earnhardt Jr   Chevrolet  301
 9.  Joey Logano         Toyota     301
10.  AJ Allmendinger     Ford       301
11.  Kyle Busch          Toyota     301
12.  Jeff Burton         Chevrolet  301
13.  Marcos Ambrose      Toyota     301
14.  Denny Hamlin        Toyota     301
15.  David Reutimann     Toyota     301
16.  Greg Biffle         Ford       301
17.  Matt Kenseth        Ford       300
18.  Jamie McMurray      Chevrolet  300
19.  Elliott Sadler      Ford       300
20.  David Ragan         Ford       300
21.  Mark Martin         Chevrolet  300
22.  Martin Truex Jr     Toyota     300
23.  Sam Hornish Jr      Dodge      300
24.  Reed Sorenson       Toyota     300
25.  Carl Edwards        Ford       299
26.  Brad Keselowski     Dodge      299
27.  Scott Speed         Toyota     299
28.  Paul Menard         Ford       299
29.  Casey Mears         Chevrolet  298
30.  Bobby Labonte       Toyota     297
31.  David Stremme       Ford       294
32.  Kevin Conway        Ford       292
33.  Regan Smith         Chevrolet  292
34.  Juan Pablo Montoya  Chevrolet  280
35.  David Gilliland     Ford       268
36.  Kasey Kahne         Ford       236
37.  Andy Lally          Chevrolet  142
38.  JJ Yeley            Dodge      84
39.  Joe Nemechek        Toyota     68
40.  Todd Bodine         Toyota     31
41.  Michael McDowell    Toyota     24
42.  Dave Blaney         Toyota     20
43.  Max Papis           Toyota     11