Jimmie Johnson Wins At Charlotte To Clinch Chase Spot

Jimmie Johnson wins his third race of the season

Jared C. Tilton/NASCAR via Getty Images

Jimmie Johnson powered to victory in Sunday’s Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway to win the opening race of Round 2 of the Chase the NASCAR Sprint Cup and punch his ticket the third round for the first time in his career.

Johnson passed Matt Kenseth following a restart with 18 laps to go and pulled away from the field to win for the third time this season in an all-important race that had serious repercussions for at least half of the 12 Chase contenders.

Kenseth held on to finish second, followed by Kasey Kahne, Ryan Newman and Kyle Larson.

Johnson’s victory was the 78^th of his career and his first win since Auto Club Speedway back in March, and couldn’t have come at a better time as the championship contenders now have just two races left in this round – including the make-or-break race at Talladega Superspeedway in two weeks – to try and earn a spot in the "round of eight".

"Once we got some track position, the car drove great. Restarts seemed to be very important and being able to control the race," said Johnson. "Cautions fell our way in a sense. I think there were some guys trying to stretch it at the end and the 11 I guess blew up and prevented that strategy from taking place. The 20 (Kenseth) was ahead of us out of the pits and I had a great restart and got back about about things just hoping it stayed green.

"It (the win) gives us – I don't know what our plan would be at Kansas, but it certainly opens up the book, whatever opportunities may present themselves. It lets me go to Talladega and not worry about anything, which is fantastic. I can just get up in the race and mix it up, and race hard. We can't sit back and celebrate too much on this. We've got to buckle down and get to work tomorrow and keep advancing our race cars. But this does buy us a couple weeks of freedom."

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"] Johnson led a race-high 155 laps but was only hovering around the top 10 for much of the early part of the race.

Johnson’s big break in the race came on lap 118, after Joey Logano slammed the wall to bring out the third caution flag of the day.

The caution caught nearly the entire field on pit road, with the exception of Johnson and Denny Hamlin, who were able to pit under the yellow flag and restart at the front of the field.

Once out in front, Johnson was on a rail – showing flashes of the dominance his team once enjoyed at Charlotte including a stretch where they won four straight races. Johnson proved untouchable on restarts, at one point pulling out to a 2.5 second lead.

The turning point in the event happened during a restart on lap 260 following a caution flag for A.J. Allmendinger hitting the wall.

The caution flag brought the leaders to pit road including Chase driver Austin Dillon, who gambled on a two tire stop to move up from 11^th to second behind Johnson for the restart.

Once the field came around to take the green flag, Dillon failed to get up to speed on the inside and got run over by Martin Truex, Jr., touching off a 12-car crash that collected follow Chase contenders Elliott, Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards and Kurt Busch along with Ryan Blaney, Paul Menard and Brian Scott.

Chase Elliott led 103 laps before crashing out on lap 260

Jared C. Tilton/NASCAR via Getty Images

The crash ended a spectacular run for the rookie Chase Elliott, who led 103 laps and had a legitimate chance to win and advance himself to the next round.

Elliott and Dillon were among five of the 12 Chase contenders who found trouble during the course of the race, including Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin.

Logano was the first of the Chase drivers to run into trouble after cutting a tire down on lap 118 and smacking the wall, then cut down another tire on lap 157 to end his chances of winning.

Harvick fell victim to an engine problem on lap 154 that put him behind the wall before his crew finally threw in the towel, while Hamlin suffered an engine failure on lap 309.

Matt Kenseth came from the back to the front twice to record his third-straight top five finish and hold onto second in the Chase standings.

Kenseth started the race in the rear of the field after unapproved adjustments to his No. 20 Toyota, then had fight his way back after a pit road penalty on lap 30 – racing his way back into the top 10 by lap 180.

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"] Kenseth then took over the lead on lap 312 after beating Johnson off pit road during a round of yellow-flag stops, but ended up losing the lead to Johnson just five laps later.

"Yeah, we didn't make it easy," said Kenseth of starting in the rear. "It was an uphill battle, but Jason (Ratcliff, crew chief) made some great adjustments, had some good pit stops, a great pit stop when we needed there at the end to put us in position to try to go for a win. We were just a little off. I just couldn't run that 48 on a short run. I don't think I could have done anything different there.

"We'd love to have the win, make you feel better about the next two weeks, yet it was a solid run."

Despite an early tire problem, four pit road penalties and getting caught up in the big wreck, Kyle Busch still managed to fight his way to a sixth-place finish to hold onto third in the Chase standings. Brad Keselowski sits fourth, followed by Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards, Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin, Austin Dillon, Chase Elliott , Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick

Race Results

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