Jimmie Johnson survives for fourth win in-a-row at Lowes

Tonight's UAW-Gm Quality 500 at Lowes Motor Speedway was a mess. Drivers were afraid to run hard because the Goodyear tires just were not able to handle the abuse. They had a record number of cautions for 500 miles at Lowes Motor Speedway as Jimmie Johnson won this grueling battle for survival to claim his fourth win in a row at this race track.

Qualifying

Three drivers in the Chase for the NEXTEL Cup qualified in the top four but the field was lead to the green by non-Chaser Elliott Sadler. Ryan Newman started on the outside of row one. Jimmie Johnson and point leader Tony Stewart made up row number two.

Johnson had to change the engine after practice and was forced to drop to the back for the start.

Bobby Labonte started fifth and three more Chasers made up the next three spots as Roush Racing drivers Mark Martin, Kurt Busch and Carl Edwards made it six Chasers in the top eight qualifying spots.

Drop The Green Flag

The start of the race was delayed a bit as NASCAR waited for NBC to finish covering the USC - Notre Dame football game. While some were grumbling this was a great move by NASCAR. The fans and drivers at the track didn't miss the extra few minutes, the fans at home got to see the start of the race and NBC went from one top sports draw to the next without missing a beat.

Ryan Newman jumped out to the early lead as teams were pretty cautious early in the race. Everyone was waiting to see if the tire problems from Friday night were going to continue with the Cup cars.

Ryan Newman had a tire problem early in the race and handed the lead over to Elliott Sadler and Tony Stewart. NASCAR then threw a mandatory caution on lap 30 to check the tires. Ryan Newman got the lucky dog award and came around to be back on the lead lap.

Storylines

Tires were a huge story this week. The Busch race on Saturday night saw a record fourteen cautions as tire problems plagued the field. Unfortunately, that problem carried over to the NEXTEL Cup race as well.

Robby Gordon, Ryan Newman, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Matt Kenseth, Sterling Marlin, Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, point leader Tony Stewart and others all had tire problems tonight.

Early in the race Greg Biffle said that they were not racing to win but rather just racing to survive. That summed up pretty well the feelings of most of the drivers.

Chasing The Checkers

Rusty Wallace got turned around on the backstretch and brought out a caution with four laps to go which set up a green-white-checkers two lap shootout to the end.

Jimmie Johnson had the lead on the restart but Kurt Busch in second also had a fast car. Greg Biffle took the final restart in third ahead of Joe Nemechek and a very impressive fifth place Denny Hamlin who was driving the Joe Gibbs Racing #11.

Jimmie Johnson calmly controlled the restart and held on for the win as the only change in the top five came as Mark Martin got around Denny Hamlin for fifth.

Top Ten

1. Jimmie Johnson
2. Kurt Busch
3. Greg Biffle
4. Joe Nemechek
5. Mark Martin
6. Casey Mears
7. Ryan Newman
8. Denny Hamlin
9. Ricky Rudd
10. Carl Edwards

The Points

We have a points race again! Tony Stewart was one of the drivers who had tire problems tonight and his big point lead has evaporated. Tony Stewart and Jimmie Johnson now share the point lead and Carl Edwards in sixth is only 54 points behind the leaders.

The Chase points are now:

1. Tony Stewart -0
2. Jimmie Johnson -0
3. Greg Biffle -11
4. Ryan Newman -17
5. Mark Martin -51
6. Carl Edwards -54
7. Rusty Wallace -92
8. Jeremy Mayfield -115
9. Matt Kenseth -124
10. Kurt Busch -142

Next Week

Next week Martinsville Speedway hosts the only short track race of the 2005 Chase for the NEXTEL cup. Martinsville is a flat half-mile paperclip shaped speedway where beating and banging is the order of the day.