Jimmie Johnson Wins at the Monster Mile

Once again, Jimmie Johnson proved not to be intimidated by this treacherous race track, as he dominated the competition to complete the season sweep at Dover.  Jimmie Johnson gave a lot of credit to crew chief Chad Kanaus on this victory.  “Chad made some great calls [Saturday] night to make the car more comfortable to drive,” said Johnson, “it was really what I needed [Sunday]. We had plenty of speed in it. I just needed some comfort, and I had that. “I was able to lead a lot of laps, but the few times we were back in traffic because of strategy, I worked my way up through there, and everything went well.”

While this win does add some pressure to points leader Mark Martin, he did not bend in this race and came home an impressive 2nd place in the AAA 400.  Martin, the wily veteran, knows what it takes to maintain the lead in the Championship standings, and recognizes that “it’s just two races,” Martin said. “I still say that there’s 12 in and 12 can win. It might be a challenge for a couple of the ones toward the end of the back.”

Martin went on to discuss how his #5 car handled throughout the race: “We had a good-handling car on the long runs, but it was a handful on the restarts,” Martin said. “I think we did really well by finishing second. We were just off a little bit, and it really showed itself on the restarts, but we were off just a little bit even on the long run, even though we would get where we could beat most of the crowd. “We didn’t hit it perfect, but as competitive as it is, I’m really proud of how well we hit it.”

Matt Kenseth had a fantastic run, finishing 3rd in the AAA 400.  This is the best finish he has had since he won at the Auto Club Speedway in February. It ended up being really good,” Kenseth said, “we didn’t qualify very good [23rd] but we were really happy with our car. When the race started I didn’t think we were quite as good as we were [in practice on Saturday], but we were able to have really good pit stops.”

The race was stopped for nearly a half hour, after a devistating crash claimed the #20 car of Joey Logano.  The rookie flipped over several times before landing on it’s roof, but emerged okay after being taken to the infield care center.

Here is how they finished for the AAA 400 at Dover:

Other notables: Carl Edwards (11), Greg Biffle (13), Brian Vickers (18), Dale Earnhardt, Jr (20), Denny Hamlin (22), Kyle Busch (31)

Thanks to an impressive 4th place finish, Juan Montoyaclimed up one position to 3rd in the standings.  Jeff Gordon moved up two positions, while Brian Vickers moved down two positions in the standings.  Kasey Kahne remains in 12th, but is fairly optimistic thanks to his 8th place finish at Dover. As always, we leave you with the top 12 Sprint Cup Points Standings. The NASCAR Sprint Cup series moves to Kansas this Sunday at 1pm.