CONCORD, N.C. — Jimmie Johnson completed the perfect weekend with a victory at Lowe’s Motor Speedway to take control of the championship standings.
The three-time defending series champion raced to his third victory in the Chase for the Sprint Cup on Saturday night, extending his lead to 90 points over teammate Mark Martin.
Seeking a NASCAR-record fourth consecutive Cup championship, Johnson led every practice session and won the pole to complete yet another dominating run at Lowe’s. He has been the driver to beat at the suburban Charlotte track since early in his career, and the victory was the Lowe’s- sponsored driver’s sixth on the 1.5-mile oval.
“Man, we pulled off a perfect weekend, and we’ve always wanted to do that,” Johnson said in his first Victory Lane visit at the track since 2005.
Matt Kenseth was second, followed by Kasey Kahne and Jeff Gordon, Johnson’s teammate at Hendrick Motorsports.
Martin, who started the race 12 points behind his teammate in the standings, finished 17th in part because of front-end damage received when he ran into the back of Juan Pablo Montoya on an early restart.
It was that kind of night for several title contenders, as eight of the 12 finished outside the top 10 in a rare off night for the Chase drivers.
Montoya, who was third in the standings and just 58 points out of the lead at the start of the race, dropped to sixth and is 195 points out. He damaged the front and back ends of his car on the restart problem with Martin and Clint Bowyer, and fell two laps down trying to get pit road for repairs.
“It happens,” said Montoya, whose hopes of becoming the first foreign-born driver to win the Cup title likely ended. “It’s one of those racing things and you’ve just got to move on.
“We had one of the fastest cars (but) there’s not much we can do. We worked as hard as we could, we did all we thought was possible and here you go. Today the best we could was 35th.”
Denny Hamlin and Carl Edwards both blew motors, Greg Biffle was in a late spin and Tony Stewart never contended. That left it up to Kahne and Gordon to chase down Johnson, and despite some thrilling late restarts, neither came close.
Gordon finished fourth, but lost ground to Johnson in the standings and is 135 points out as only Martin is within shouting distance of the champion. Johnson will take the cushion into Martinsville, Va., where he’s won five of the last six races.
Barrichello wins pole
SAO PAULO — Rubens Barrichello won the pole position for his hometown Brazilian Grand Prix, emerging from a chaotic, rainy qualifying as the only Formula One contender in the top 10 on the grid.
Brawn GP teammate and championship leader Jenson Button will start in 14th place and Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel in 15th. Both drivers struggled in a qualifying session that was interrupted twice by red flags and delayed several times because of treacherous track conditions at Interlagos.
Button can clinch the title by finishing third or better in today’s race.
The 37-year-old Barrichello finished in 1 minute, 19.576 seconds under extremely wet conditions on the 2.6-mile track, 0.092 seconds ahead of Red Bull’s Mark Webber and 0.336 in front of Force India’s Adrian Sutil.
NASCAR Sprint Cup
Points standings
1. Jimmie Johnson 5,923
2. Mark Martin 5,833
3. Jeff Gordon 5,788
4. Tony Stewart 5,768
5. Kurt Busch 5,746
6. Juan Montoya 5,728
7. Greg Biffle 5,655
8. Ryan Newman 5,635
9. Kasey Kahne 5,592
10. Carl Edwards 5,582
11. Denny Hamlin 5,551
12. Brian Vickers 5,438
