Johnson wins the Hendrick scrap

LAS VEGAS – What will it take to deny Jimmie Johnson a fifth consecutive Sprint Cup Series championship?

He showed last week he had plenty of luck, as a timely late-race caution during a green-flag pit stop allowed him to remain on the lead lap and notch his first win of the season.

Sunday, faced with the prospect of losing to a much more dominant Hendrick Motorsports teammate – for th e day, anyway – Johnson again prevailed. This time, pit strategy propelled him to victory in the Shelby American at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

After a furious side-by-side battle, Johnson passed teammate Jeff Gordon with 17 of 267 laps remaining – on four new tires – and snatched a win away from Gordon. The other four-time Cup champion in the Hendrick Motorsports stable had taken two tires on the final pit stop.

Johnson led a total of 18 laps. Gordon, meanwhile, had led a race-high 219 and was clearly the class of field.

Is Johnson, who already has won a NASCAR record four consecutive titles, invincible?

“We can’t sit still. Complacency is going to kill you,” Johnson said. “We’re looking forward to going to Atlanta next week with new ideas and new things.

“It’s great. We don’t feel invincible, though. It was nice to go out there today and really earn this one, race Jeff hard for the win.

“But invincible – far from that.”

Perhaps not, but the book of ideas on how to keep Johnson from piling up wins – he now has 49 and is 12th all-time in series history – is running thin on new ideas.

Jokingly, Gordon offered a new one.

"I’m kind of hoping they peak early this year and that some of us can gain the momentum as we get to the Chase,” he said.

“It’s going to make us all work really, really hard, you know. But who knows?

"They’re very good. You know, they haven’t had a lot of turnover in people and changes. They’re the team to beat.”

Gordon appeared on cruise control and en route to his first win in almost a year. Then a caution came out on Lap 229, giving teams a final chance to pit for fuel and tires.

Gordon, leading at the time, and Matt Kenseth both took two tires. The rest of the lead-lap teams – including Johnson's – took four.

Clint Bowyer elected not to pit and took over the race lead.

It took Gordon less than a lap to pass Bowyer. But the 34 laps left – all caution-free – showed Johnson’s four-tire advantage.

“If we won the race, we’d look like geniuses, Steve (Letarte, crew chief) would have," Gordon said.

"The fact that we lost the race, now Chad (Knaus, Johnson’s crew chief) looks like a genius.”

“I talked to Steve briefly after the race. He’s pretty upset, obviously.

"I think he just felt like more people were going to take two tires. Shoot, we were thinking for a split-second to stay out.”

Knaus was adamant that Letarte made the right call.

“I didn’t out-smart him,” Knaus said. “There wasn’t a wrong call to make.

"They came in first. They wanted to maintain track position because track position is so critical.

“The only way for us to beat them was to do something different.”

While Gordon and Johnson settled this race victory within the Hendrick family, Richard Childress Racing driver Kevin Harvick continued to show he would be a player this season as well.

For the second consecutive week, Harvick finished second to Johnson and remains the series points leader after three races. His teammate, Bowyer, is 47 points behind him in second.

“I feel like the beginning of the run (Johnson and Gordon) got out from us. I felt like at the end of the run we were just as good as they were,” Harvick said.

“It’s just a matter of we got a little bit looser than we had been all day long the last two runs. We can run with them and they know it.”