Johnson wins again in Atlanta

Johnson led a race-high 134 laps - 13 more than Stewart, his closest rival all afternoon. His win in the Kobalt Tools 500 puts him now only 28 points away from leader Mark Martin, who is scheduled to skip the next race at Bristol.

"We had a great race car all day long," Johnson said after taking his 25th career victory in the Nextel Cup.

"There were a few guys which were better than us in the short run but Chad (Knaus, crew chief) made some great adjustments for that sprint in the end and they were spot on.

"It is so much fun racing with the best in the business and Tony Stewart is certainly that. They got so much speed and I was shocked that was able hang with him. I started to race with him and put on a great race. Tony Stewart is a great race car driver."

Stewart wasn't as forthcoming to his rival, taking objection to Johnson's overtaking manoeuvre for the lead out of Turn 2.

"I got an awful crowd there in Turn 2," Stewart said. "But I'm really happy for my whole team. We fought ourselves after a bad pitstop there all the way back to the lead. But we didn't have enough evidently."

Far behind the pair, Matt Kenseth grabbed third from Jeff Burton and an impressive Juan Pablo Montoya, who ran the second half of the race in the top ten and moved up to the top five in the last 100 laps to take his best finish of the season to date.

"Oh, I loved it!", Montoya said. "The team did a great job with the pitstops and the Dodge was amazing today. It's nice to get a top-five here, there were a lot of Colombian flags and it's just nice.

"We're getting the hang of it. In the high line I'm really comfortable but now I need to run a little bit more comfortable running at the bottom of the track."

The race was a very clean one with six cautions coming out but only one due to an incident on lap 231 when David Reutimann hit the back of Greg Biffle, who was running on his inside out of turn two.

Biffle got loose and turned into Brian Vickers who was passing him on the outside. Kasey Kahne was an innocent victim of the wreck, crashing also into the back of Reutimann and having his third consecutive crash in as many races.

Jimmie Johnson showed he was going to be the man to beat since the first laps leading the field at the start. Kyle Busch and Jeff Gordon looked capable of running his pace for a while but both men hit trouble later.

Busch was forced to pit for the first time under green, earlier than planned with a suspected tyre problem, dropping a lap down.

Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart also looked quick early on leading a number of laps, but were not able to stay up front during the pitstops while the Hendrick crews of Johnson and Gordon delivered their usual best to allow both men to lead half of the first 163 laps between them.

Stewart had a very lengthy pitstop halfway through the distance, which dropped him out of the top-ten. However he had the speed to recover and take the lead of the race once again on lap 239.

The last few laps however were when the action unfolded. Some of the front runners were tight on fuel nearing the end of the race but a caution with 15 laps to go allowed all of them to pit for fuel and tyres for the final sprint.

Racing out of the pits Tony Stewart was able to stay on the lead, followed by Johnson, Kenseth and Montoya.

With 11 to go the green flag waved for the final time. Montoya went on the outside of Kenseth and Johnson but got squeezed and rubbed the right side of his car against the wall, losing momentum and 4th place to Jeff Burton.

Ahead of him, Johnson closed on Stewart diving on his inside with 5 laps remaining but not being able to make the pass. The current Cup champion finally got a good run on the 20 car and grabbed the lead passing Stewart on the inside with 3 to go, squeezing him going out of turn 2.

Stewart touched the wall while Johnson drove away to take his second win in as many weeks.

Mark Martin had a quiet though effective run to finish tenth and lead the points standing leaving everyone wondering if he will really stick to his plan of skipping the next round at Bristol.

Toyota achieved a milestone in a debut season in the Nextel Cup, leading their first laps with Red Bull's Brian Vickers heading the field from laps 89 to 91 after staying out longer while most drivers pitted.

Dave Blaney was the top Camry at the end of the race finishing 27th and two laps down on the winner.

Next weekend's race will be the first Car of Tomorrow race of the season.

Pos  Driver              Make        Laps
 1.  Jimmie Johnson      Chevrolet   325
 2.  Tony Stewart        Chevrolet   325
 3.  Matt Kenseth        Ford        325
 4.  Jeff Burton         Chevrolet   325
 5.  Juan Montoya        Dodge       325
 6.  Clint Bowyer        Chevrolet   325
 7.  Carl Edwards        Ford        325
 8.  Martin Truex Jr     Chevrolet   325
 9.  Reed Sorenson       Dodge       325
10.  Mark Martin         Chevrolet   325
11.  Kurt Busch          Dodge       325
12.  Jeff Gordon         Chevrolet   325
13.  David Stremme       Dodge       325
14.  Dale Earnhardt Jr   Chevrolet   325
15.  Jamie McMurray      Ford        325
16.  Bobby Labonte       Dodge       325
17.  Joe Nemechek        Chevrolet   325
18.  Elliott Sadler      Dodge       325
19.  Denny Hamlin        Chevrolet   324
20.  Robby Gordon        Ford        324
21.  Mike Bliss          Dodge       324
22.  JJ Yeley            Chevrolet   324
23.  Ryan Newman         Dodge       324
24.  Sterling Marlin     Chevrolet   324
25.  Kevin Harvick       Chevrolet   324
26.  Ricky Rudd          Ford        323
27.  Dave Blaney         Toyota      323
28.  Casey Mears         Chevrolet   323
29.  Johnny Sauter       Chevrolet   323
30.  David Gilliland     Ford        323
31.  Paul Menard         Chevrolet   323
32.  Kyle Busch          Chevrolet   322
33.  David Ragan         Ford        322
34.  Kyle Petty          Dodge       322
35.  Jeff Green          Chevrolet   322
36.  Dale Jarrett        Toyota      320
37.  Ken Schrader        Ford        318
38.  Tony Raines         Chevrolet   318
39.  Kasey Kahne         Dodge       306
40.  David Reutimann     Toyota      295
41.  Greg Biffle         Ford        280
42.  Brian Vickers       Toyota      227
43.  Scott Riggs         Dodge       221