Johnson wins again at Richmond

The reigning champion jumped Stewart in the final pitstops and then overtook Martin Truex Jr, who had emerged in the lead after changing only two tyres, whereas Johnson had swapped all four.

The Hendrick driver then kept 'Smoke' at bay in the final sprint of the race, forcing him to run at the bottom of the track and never giving him the chance to move up front, with Stewart only able to go side by side with Johnson a couple of times.

Johnson's fourth victory of the season gives him an extra ten points that now put him within ten points of Carl Edwards when the Chase for the Sprint Cup starts next week, and forty behind points leader Kyle Busch.

His win comes on a completely different track to the high-speed intermediate circuits that will prevail during the final ten races, but one that resembles two other venues that he will compete in the series' 'play-off', showing that the No.48 team is hitting top form as they start their title defence.

"We're doing all the things right but that doesn't guarantee you anything going into the Chase," Johnson said. "You've got to show up and put on ten good ones. I'm very proud of our journey this year and where we've ended up as a team and a company. Let's see what these ten races give us."

Stewart came close to ending a 39-race win-less streak that dates back to August of last year, but in the end he had to contend with second. The two-time champion couldn't hide his disappointment over losing out in the final pitstop when on course for his first victory of the season.

"We just couldn't get by [Johnson]," said Stewart, who will start the Chase from eighth place next week. "We did everything we could, we raced him clean, we raced him like he would've raced us. I wanted to race him with respect and we just came up short."

Denny Hamlin came third, also securing sixth place in the Chase. Joe Gibbs Racing and Richard Childress Racing will be the only two teams with all their drivers in the hunt for the championship in the final ten weeks of the season.

Dale Earnhardt Jr led early on and ended up fifth ahead of future teammate Mark Martin, who rounded up the top five for DEI. Chase drivers Jeff Burton, Kevin Harvick and Jeff Gordon followed him, with Harvick running a very strong first half of the race where he led for 80 laps.

However leading the most laps during the afternoon and repeating his ninth place from last week at Fontana was David Reutimann.

The Michael Waltrip Racing driver led for 104 laps after going out of sequence from the leaders on the second half of the race. With the way the cautions fell afterwards, he rejoined the leaders' sequence and was able to keep Stewart and Johnson behind for a number of laps, before losing a few places on his final pitstop.

"Definitely bums me out a little bit that we didn't do a little better at the end there," said Reutimann. "It ended up being too tight towards the end. Any time you can come out of here with a top-10 and be upset about it I guess is not a bad day."

Points leader Kyle Busch led from pole and looked a threat for victory until Earnhardt Jr ran into his left-rear quarter panel entering Turn 1 on lap 211, bumping him out of the lead.

The move was cheered by Earnhardt's fans in the stands as they saw it as revenge for a similar incident between the two that took place at this very track in May. Back then, Busch ran into Earnhardt while fighting for victory in the closing laps of the race.

"We got tore up a little bit there but you know, nothing we could do with that," Busch said. "We just had to continue on, soldier on and the guys dug deep there, got the thing repaired for at least I could somewhat drive it.

"It was hard to drive those last 200 laps or so but we were able to prevail there with a top-15 I guess and we'll take that and go on. But just unfortunate."

For Carl Edwards and the Roush Fenway contingent, the race was one to forget despite Matt Kenseth securing his Chase spot. The former Cup champion spun at Turn 1 on lap 121, just as his teammate David Ragan was doing the same thing in front of him.

Both Roush cars made contact, piling up against the wall that teammate Greg Biffle had clipped a few laps earlier. Ragan's Chase hopes took a hit in the process, and despite a strong recovery from him later on, he ended up 14th in the points and missing the cut.

"It's very disappointing," said Ragan. "I felt like the first 100 or so laps we had a top five car and the AAA Ford seemed to be pretty quick. It just seemed to turn a corner sometime after lap 100 there we didn't have the speed.

"We brought out that one caution and seemed to have poor track position and the car really fell off on the long run."

Michael McDowell was the highest finishing rookie in 20th place on his return to the No.00 car after sitting out the last three events in favour of NASCAR veteran Mike Skinner.

The Chase for the Sprint Cup kicks off next Sunday at Loudon, New Hampshire.

Pos  Driver              Car        Laps
 1.  Jimmie Johnson      Chevrolet  400
 2.  Tony Stewart        Toyota     400
 3.  Denny Hamlin        Toyota     400
 4.  Dale Earnhardt Jr   Chevrolet  400
 5.  Mark Martin         Chevrolet  400
 6.  Jeff Burton         Chevrolet  400
 7.  Kevin Harvick       Chevrolet  400
 8.  Jeff Gordon         Chevrolet  400
 9.  David Reutimann     Toyota     400
10.  Kurt Busch          Dodge      400
11.  Casey Mears         Chevrolet  400
12.  Clint Bowyer        Chevrolet  400
13.  Carl Edwards        Ford       400
14.  Greg Biffle         Ford       400
15.  Kyle Busch          Toyota     400
16.  Martin Truex Jr     Chevrolet  400
17.  Travis Kvapil       Ford       400
18.  David Gilliland     Ford       400
19.  Kasey Kahne         Dodge      400
20.  Michael McDowell    Toyota     400
21.  Bobby Labonte       Dodge      400
22.  Dave Blaney         Toyota     400
23.  Regan Smith         Chevrolet  400
24.  Kyle Petty          Dodge      400
25.  Patrick Carpentier  Dodge      400
26.  Reed Sorenson       Dodge      400
27.  Ken Schrader        Toyota     400
28.  Michael Waltrip     Toyota     400
29.  Jamie McMurray      Ford       400
30.  Juan Montoya        Dodge      400
31.  Scott Riggs         Chevrolet  400
32.  David Ragan         Ford       400
33.  Ryan Newman         Dodge      399
34.  Paul Menard         Chevrolet  399
35.  Bill Elliott        Ford       399
36.  Brian Vickers       Toyota     398
37.  Elliott Sadler      Dodge      398
38.  Sam Hornish Jr      Dodge      398
39.  Matt Kenseth        Ford       398
40.  Joe Nemechek        Chevrolet  398
41.  Johnny Sauter       Chevrolet  397
42.  Robby Gordon        Dodge      392
43.  AJ Allmendinger     Toyota     335