October 29, 2007
By Ron Felix

Johnson Celebrates * CIA Stock Photo

One minute Jimmie Johnson was riding along in fourth spot, worried whether he'd have enough fuel to finish the race. Next moment he found himself in first place in a green-white-checkers finish that gave him the victory in the Pep Boys Auto 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday. With seven laps to go Kyle Busch was leading the race, Martin Truex Jr. was second, Kurt Busch third and Jimmie Johnson was fourth. Johnny Sauter blew a right front tire and smacked the wall, bringing out the 12th caution of the event. Everyone was short on fuel and all the leaders made a pit stop, all except Denny Hamlin. He stayed on the track to take the lead. Some drivers took four tires, some took two. Johnson took two tires and came out in second place for the restart. When the race restarted Hamlin failed to go, out of fuel and cars were stacking up behind him. Martin Truex Jr. who had led the most laps, crashed into Hamlin, putting both of them out of the race and setting up the green-white-checkers finish.

On the first lap of the final restart, Dale Earnhardt Jr., running third, had a left rear wheel come off. He smashed hard into the outside wall and collected Jamie McMurray in the process -- and the race was essentially over at that point. Johnson was in the lead and all he needed to do was to complete the remaining green-white-checker laps under yellow. This is the 31st victory of Johnson's career, his eighth of the 2007 season and third at Atlanta Motor Speedway. It is Johnson's second consecutive victory, he also won last Sunday at Martinsville Speedway. Johnson credited the victory to the team only taking two tires on the last pit stop.

"Chad made the call (to take two tires) and the cautions worked in our favor," Johnson said. "We've had some tough races, but it's going to be a shoot-out to the end. We'll just keep putting the pressure on."

Carl Edwards finished second with local favorite Reed Sorenson in third. Matt Kenseth brought his Ford home in the fourth spot and Jeff Burton was fifth. Rounding out the top-ten were Clint Bowyer, Jeff Gordon, Kurt Busch, Kasey Kahne and Brian Vickers.

“I would have loved to have had a shot (at Jimmie Johnson)," said Edwards. "I hate to see a race end like that. I think it would have been a great race. The 8 car and the 48 were both really fast and we were gonna be pretty good on two tires and Matt had four tires, so it was gonna be one heck of a finish. We just had a good day all around. We finished way better than we ran and I appreciate the fans coming out here. It’s a great place to race and a really exciting place to be.”

With Johnson's victory, the Nextel Cup point tightened up considerably. Jeff Gordon now leads Johnson by nine points in the standings with three races remaining on the 2007 schedule.

"I feel like we've got the team and the equipment to do it, but those guys are tough and they're showing it every weekend," said Gordon. "All I'm focusing right now is trying not to have the bad day and, for a while, it looked like it was going to be the bad day. We struggled there for a while and, to come back and finish seventh, it was a great day, even though Jimmie won."

Dale Earnhardt's wreck on the final restart, shook the lame-duck driver.

"Man... that was a HIT! It was hard and loud! BAM into that wall," said Earnhardt. "I knew when I was sliding up there it was gonna be big... and it was. Loud and hard. We lost a left rear wheel. We must have had an issue with the hubs or something because we had loose lugs and a loose left rear wheel several times through the day. When that wasn't a problem, we were fast as hell. We passed a lot of cars today but you can only do that if everything is tight and screwed on correctly. I knew we had a loose wheel on our last long run at the end of the race, but when we pitted the last time (on lap 319), we changed two right-side tires to get track position, but the left side was still loose. It must have gotten worse during the yellow flags. I dunno. All I know is I have a headache and I'm going to my bus to rest up...I did tell the medical staff 'hey, if you say I'm injured, I can go home and I won't have to test here the next few days' but I'm all right and they wouldn't go for it! ha!"

"We really had a fast car, but we had one thing after another that went wrong and we'd fight back every time," Earnhardt continued."We had ignition problems at the very start, then got penalized for barely touching the cone at the entrance to the pit lane. Let's see... after that I thought I had a tire going flat so we stopped under green and it turns out it wasn't flat and we lost a lap. Then, we fought hard to get the lucky dog and we scrambled to get that back. We fought like mad to get back to the front - and we did - but we had a loose wheel on one of the long runs (laps 199-235) and I just did all I could to hold my position. Don't ask me what was going on on those last restarts. It was a mess. The 11 car (Hamlin) stopped and the 99 (Edwards) passed us on the inside before the start finish line and it was chaos. After that, we were just hoping that wheel would hold on and get to the finish. It didn't."

Budweiser team's car chief Mike Moore, who mans the pit sign as Dale Jr. comes into his pit box, was struck in the mouth by a lugnut that had been shot like a bullet from underneath the spinning tire of a car leaving the pits two stalls in front of the Bud pit area. A bloodied Moore was taken to the infield care center where he was given four stitches in his upper lip. He was taken to a dentist immediately after the race to have his loose front teeth treated. Despite the injuries, Moore returned to the Bud pits after being released from the care center, and resumed his duties for the final 130 laps.

Martin Truex Jr. led five times for 135 laps to earn WIX Filters Lap Leader of the Race honors in today’s Pep Boys Auto 500. Truex, who won his second Lap Leader of the Race award this season, was in contention to win today’s race until getting caught up in an accident with less than ten laps remaining in the event.

Johnson will donate his earnings from Sunday's race to the American Red Cross for the fire relief effort in his native California. The donation will be matched by NASCAR and Bruton Smith pledged to do the same. The check will be over one million dollars.

A.J. Allmendinger finished 16th and took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the second time this season.

“It was exciting. On car speed we didn’t deserve to finish where we did," Allmendinger said. "But on effort, we thought we deserved to finish higher. We never gave up. We just could never get a handle on the car. It was so loose, and we just could never get the right rear on the race track. This is stuff I’m learning, this is stuff the team is learning. When we’re not very good, and, heck, to survive and almost have our best finish of the year with one of the worst cars that we’ve had, I think that shows that we’re learning as a team. We can be struggling like that but we can have a good finish.”

The Nextel Cup Series moves to the Texas Motor Speedway next Sunday for the Dickies 500. The race is scheduled for 3:00 p.m. Eastern time and will be covered by ESPN on ABC.



For full race results...     (Insider Racing News)
For top-40 Nextel Cup drivers points...     (Insider Racing News)