Johnson wins second straight Cup title

Johnson needed just a 19th place finish to clinch the title after leading the first lap of the event from pole position. He then ran a very controlled race, mirroring the strategy calls from title rival Jeff Gordon and staying out of trouble to round up a great season with another top-ten finish.

"I'm just so proud of this moment, so proud of Chad (Knaus) and my crew guys," an ecstatic Johnson said. "We came off the championship last season staying focused on the right things going through the year. I was going to be so proud before the Chase started and we just went there and won all those races. We just had an amazing run.

"I had a little bit more in the car today but I don't think I had anything that could have won the race. There were a couple of times when we took four tires when other guys took two. We got trapped down a lap, which wasn't any fun, but we were able to get a caution right away and get back on the lead lap."

The 32-year-old becomes the only two-time champion of the Nextel Cup era, which came to an end with the chequer flag at Homestead as the Series will be renamed as the Sprint Cup from 2008. He gives the seventh Cup title to Hendrick Motorsports in only his sixth full year in the series.

His teammate Jeff Gordon was never in a position to threaten his title, despite running a very aggressive set-up on his car, which saw him struggle at times. Shortly after the halfway mark he ran as high as second but that's as far as he would get to winning the race and narrowing the gap to Johnson in the points.

Gordon got at least to share part of Johnson's success as they also clinched the owner's title with the 48 car, which lists Gordon as the owner. The four-times champion also set a new Nextel Cup record by scoring his 30th top-ten finish of the season, which under the old points system would've comfortably given him the title.

"I'll be honest, I really thought that as aggressive as they were being, it was going to bite them," said Gordon while praising Johnson and his team's achievement. "I guess I was a just a little bit too confident in the whole consistency thing. I thought, that's all right, let's let them go do that, and see what happens.

"And man, they did pull it off. So that's just how good they are."

Matt Kenseth was chased to the finish line by Kurt Busch, but he basically dominated the whole race since he took the lead from Ryan Newman on lap four, completing 214 of the 267 laps up front. He gave Roush Fenway their fifth win at Homestead, also bidding crew chief Robbie Reiser a nice farewell in their final race together.

"I'm going to miss working with him on Sundays but he's not going far," Kenseth said. "I have a great race team and I feel like I let these guys down. We lost a lot of close races, so it feels great to win a close one. Congratulations to Jimmie and Rick Hendrick and those guys. It was an awesome run today."

Juan Pablo Montoya secured the Raybestos Rookie of the Year honours with a 15th place finish, a year after making his Nextel Cup debut at the very same venue. The Colombian ran as high as third during the race, but slipped in the closing stages when the track got cooler going into the night.

"I think we learned a lot," Montoya said about his rookie season. "We can qualify good and have good runs but it's hard. Today we had a decent car all day but we just couldn't make it better. We tried all kind of things, but that's all we had."

Dave Blaney secured himself a spot on the grid for the first five races of 2008 by putting his car in the top-35 in the owner points with a 12th place-finish. Kyle Petty finished the season in the 35th place in the owner standings for the second year in a row, also taking that benefit.

"It's huge. It's a different world to be in 35th versus 36th," Blaney said. "We had to get in there and our whole team did a great job to get us there. We get a head start on those first five races and we just have to do better in the first five. This year we had DNFs in the first three so that really put us behind right from the start."

Dale Earnhardt Jr had a sour final race for DEI, causing the first two caution periods of the day. He first spun entering pitlane after a strange incident that involved contact with Kyle Busch and then got spun on the following restart by Jeff Burton, hitting the wall and causing more damage to his car.

Patrick Carpentier and Sam Hornish Jr had another tough day of learning, both being involved in incidents while running at the back of the pack. Carpentier spun Brian Vickers out of the race when the Red Bull driver slowed down for a spinning Johnny Sauter in front of him, causing damage to his car and finishing several laps down.

Sam Hornish Jr caused a caution flag a few laps later when he brushed the wall between turns three and four, also damaging his car. He was classified 37th and crossed the finish line 13 laps behind the winner.

The Nextel Cup contingent now gets a much-deserved break, before starting preparations for the 50th anniversary of the Daytona 500, which will kick off the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup.

Pos  Driver               Make        Laps
 1.  Matt Kenseth         Ford        267
 2.  Kurt Busch           Dodge       267
 3.  Denny Hamlin         Chevrolet   267
 4.  Jeff Gordon          Chevrolet   267
 5.  Carl Edwards         Ford        267
 6.  Martin Truex Jr      Chevrolet   267
 7.  Jimmie Johnson       Chevrolet   267
 8.  Jeff Burton          Chevrolet   267
 9.  Mark Martin          Chevrolet   267
10.  David Ragan          Ford        267
11.  David Stremme        Dodge       267
12.  Dave Blaney          Toyota      267
13.  Greg Biffle          Ford        267
14.  Jamie McMurray       Ford        267
15.  Juan Montoya         Dodge       267
16.  Casey Mears          Chevrolet   267
17.  Dale Jarrett         Toyota      266
18.  Ryan Newman          Dodge       266
19.  Kevin Harvick        Chevrolet   266
20.  Kyle Busch           Chevrolet   266
21.  Ricky Rudd           Ford        266
22.  Reed Sorenson        Dodge       266
23.  Bobby Labonte        Dodge       266
24.  Kasey Kahne          Dodge       265
25.  David Reutimann      Toyota      265
26.  Jeremy Mayfield      Chevrolet   265
27.  Robby Gordon         Ford        264
28.  Bill Elliott         Ford        264
29.  Tony Raines          Chevrolet   264
30.  Tony Stewart         Chevrolet   264
31.  JJ Yeley             Chevrolet   263
32.  David Gilliland      Ford        263
33.  Sterling Marlin      Chevrolet   263
34.  Kyle Petty           Dodge       263
35.  Paul Menard          Chevrolet   262
36.  Dale Earnhardt Jr    Chevrolet   261
37.  Sam Hornish Jr       Dodge       254
38.  Elliott Sadler       Dodge       250
39.  Clint Bowyer         Chevrolet   242
40.  Patrick Carpentier   Dodge       225
41.  Johnny Sauter        Chevrolet   157
42.  Brian Vickers        Toyota      154
43.  Johnny Benson        Toyota       73

Final Cup standings:

Pos  Driver           Points
 1.  Jimmie Johnson    6723
 2.  Jeff Gordon       6646
 3.  Clint Bowyer      6377
 4.  Matt Kenseth      6298
 5.  Kyle Busch        6293
 6.  Tony Stewart      6242
 7.  Kurt Busch        6231
 8.  Jeff Burton       6231
 9.  Carl Edwards      6222
10.  Kevin Harvick     6199
11.  Martin Truex Jr   6164
12.  Denny Hamlin      6143