Jimmie Johnson’s drive for five championships is back on track after a win from the pole in Dover.
The defending and four-time champion didn’t let a 25th place finish, at Loudon, last week derail his title hopes. “We knew we had to go out and do the job today,” Johnson said “we did all that we could and that’s what it’s going to take to be the champions. I may not look a lot excited right now, but there's this huge weight off my shoulders that we were able to win a race in the Chase, rebound from last weekend, and we're in the middle of this thing and I'm really, really excited." On the way to his sixth win of the year, six win at Dover, he led the most laps and more than proved his team races best when all the chips are on the table. It was his 53rd Cup win. In the history of NASCAR’s Chase he’s won 19 out of the 62 races run and bounced back from sixth place to second 35 points behind Denny Hamlin who finished ninth. "It was a decent day," said Hamlin. "This is what we needed to do to get by this weekend,” Hamlin added “this was a huge obstacle for us track has bitten four times for four year. This (Dover) has been our biggest obstacle we had to fight." Denny Hamlin was optimistic about stopping the Johnson express train. "I think a lot of people are just waiting for us to slip up like we have done in the past, but I don't see it happening." Kyle Busch, who finished sixth, is 45 points behind Denny Hamlin. Second place Jeff Burton explained "What won the race for Jimmie wasn't the start of the restart, but about 15 laps into the next‑to‑the‑last run, he cleared Logano and got really fast right there. He squirted away from me pretty hard and ran the 18 down. Then we started running them down. But he was just a little quicker than we were today." Third place Logano, a Hamlin teammate who finished third, said "We were close. There's times I thought maybe we had a shot at winning it and there's times I was happy to bring it home third." AJ Allmendinger, who started second, had the race of his NASCAR career leading 143 laps earlier in the race which was more than the total of his career laps led (43 laps) in NASCAR. “It was fun to lead. No wonder Jimmie is smiling so much. It’s actually a lot of fun to lead.” Allmendinger radioed his crew. The former Champ Car winner’s best shot at his first Sprint Cup win came was denied after he picked up a metal washer in right rear tire causing a slow leak and forcing a green flag pit stop which dropped him far back in the field. He ended up 10th. Clint Bowyer, whose win last week at Loudon was clouded by NASCAR failing his car in a post race inspection back in Concord, North Carolina, finished 25 after he brushed the wall finishing. Bowyer’s Richard Childress Racing team has appealed NASCAR’s ruling and the appeal is scheduled for September 29th.
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