Johnson wins again at Richmond

Johnson passed teammate Kyle Busch on the last restart with 19 laps remaining and then pulled away from him to make it four wins out of four Car of Tomorrow races for Hendrick Motorsports.

"We had a great test here and came back hopeful, but this place has been on top of me," said Johnson after taking his first victory at Richmond, which moves him to second in the driver standings behind teammate Jeff Gordon.

"To come back and run strong all day long and then win this thing, racing there with my teammate at the end was pretty special. I knew Kyle was going to be strong on the short run but in the long run I believe we were a little bit better."

On his victory lap, Johnson pulled out of his window a white hat with the Virginia Tech University logo, displaying it to the crowd as a tribute to the victims of last month's tragedy.

Kyle Busch, who won the inaugural Car of Tomorrow race at Bristol, was a happy second, having quickly made his way up from 34th on the grid. He led 28 laps and spent most of the race running in the top ten.

"We're struggling in qualifying with these things, but we seem to get it when the race turns around. I think my car fell off a little bit on the last restart and [Johnson's] got a little bit better. He was going to get us anyway."

In the closing laps Jeff Gordon lost third place to local Denny Hamlin, avoiding a clean sweep of the top three by the Hendrick cars. Despite leading the most laps during the afternoon, Gordon's car just wasn't as good as those of his teammates in the last part of the race.

"At one time I thought we had the car to beat, " said Gordon. "But we made some adjustments trying to keep up with the changing conditions of the track and just lost it. I was trying so hard to get that 1-2-3 Hendrick finish but couldn't just pull it off."

The Penske team enjoyed their best result of the season so far, finishing fifth and sixth. Kurt Busch recovered from being a lap down after a spin on lap 6, while Ryan Newman finished behind him after a tough battle with Tony Stewart.

The Joe Gibbs driver's car suffered damage in a multi-car incident with 27 laps to go and was struggling to hold on to sixth place. Newman hit the back of his car and Stewart apparently brake tested him, but still the Penske driver was able to get by.

Kevin Harvick looked as though he was the man to end the Hendrick domination with the Car of Tomorrow when he took the lead for the first time on lap 130. He led 106 laps between then and lap 252 until he ran into David Ragan when he was leaving the pits under caution, causing heavy damage to the right front corner of his No 29 Chevrolet.

Harvick was able to remain on the lead lap after the incident but fell down to 17th. Despite that he was able to avoid a couple of wrecks that took place just ahead of him to finish seventh, ahead of Stewart, Richard Childress teammate Clint Bowyer and Matt Kenseth.

"I really don't know what happened," Harvick said. "Maybe I should've seen [David Ragan's car]. It was unfortunate but our car was really strong today and without that wreck, probably we would've been winning the race."

Juan Pablo Montoya had a frustrating afternoon after being tapped from behind by Ryan Newman on lap 120. Once more the Colombian was on the receiving end from the Penske driver as he spun, collected Johnny Sauter, both cars going backwards against the wall.

Montoya remained on the lead lap despite that, pitting twice to have the rear end of his car fixed as much as possible, but his No. 42 Dodge didn't handle well from then on. He eventually finished 26th, a lap down on the leader.

Jeff Burton, who was running second in the driver standings at the start of the day, had a short afternoon, retiring with an engine failure on lap 139.

Pos  Driver              Make       Laps
 1.  Jimmie Johnson      Chevrolet   400
 2.  Kyle Busch          Chevrolet   400
 3.  Denny Hamlin        Chevrolet   400
 4.  Jeff Gordon         Chevrolet   400
 5.  Kurt Busch          Dodge       400
 6.  Ryan Newman         Dodge       400
 7.  Kevin Harvick       Chevrolet   400
 8.  Tony Stewart        Chevrolet   400
 9.  Clint Bowyer        Chevrolet   400
10.  Matt Kenseth        Ford        400
11.  Dave Blaney         Toyota      400
12.  Carl Edwards        Ford        400
13.  Dale Earnhardt Jr   Chevrolet   400
14.  J.J. Yeley          Chevrolet   400
15.  Bobby Labonte       Dodge       400
16.  Paul Menard         Chevrolet   400
17.  Mark Martin         Chevrolet   400
18.  Casey Mears         Chevrolet   400
19.  Greg Biffle         Ford        400
20.  David Ragan         Ford        400
21.  Reed Sorenson       Dodge       400
22.  Tony Raines         Chevrolet   399
23.  Sterling Marlin     Chevrolet   399
24.  Jeff Green          Chevrolet   399
25.  Kyle Petty          Dodge       399
26.  Juan Montoya        Dodge       399
27.  Elliott Sadler      Dodge       398
28.  Martin Truex Jr.    Chevrolet   398
29.  David Reutimann     Toyota      398
30.  Scott Riggs         Dodge       397
31.  Johnny Benson       Toyota      397
32.  A.J. Allmendinger   Toyota      396
33.  Joe Nemechek        Chevrolet   393
34.  Robby Gordon        Ford        378
35.  Ward Burton         Chevrolet   370
36.  Johnny Sauter       Chevrolet   370
37.  Ricky Rudd          Ford        369
38.  David Stremme       Dodge       362
39.  Kenny Wallace       Chevrolet   331
40.  Kasey Kahne         Dodge       314
41.  Jamie McMurray      Ford        301
42.  David Gilliland     Ford        275
43.  Jeff Burton         Chevrolet   139