Johnson nudged Denny Hamlin aside on the third and fourth turns with 15 laps to go at 0.526-mile Martinsville Speedway, and gave team owner Rick Hendrick a perfect place to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his first victory in NASCAR’s premier series: victory lane.
Johnson and runner-up Hamlin had differing views of the pass that gave Johnson his fifth victory in the last six races on the Cup circuit’s smallest and perhaps trickiest track. Hamlin said there was a bump.
On the pass, Johnson caught Hamlin and got inside him on the backstretch on the 485th lap. From the outside, Hamlin tried to cut down in front of Johnson, bringing the contact.
For the second consecutive week, Hamlin was the runner-up, a spot NASCAR’s greatest driver, Richard Petty, once described as the first loser. Last week, Hamlin came up one spot short in the Food City 500 behind teammate Kyle Busch during a weekend when Hamlin told reporters that simply finishing in the top five was no longer acceptable to him.
“You know, it’s tough to say that you’ve gotten used to losing, but I’ve gotten used to the disappointment at the end. It’s not like a new thing,” Hamlin said. “My hunger is still the same, for sure. I want to win races, you know, but I can’t help being in the position I was in.
Click Here To View More NASCAR Photos
FIN ST CAR DRIVER 1 9 48 Jimmie Johnson 2 8 11 Denny Hamlin 3 7 14 Tony Stewart 4 1 24 Jeff Gordon 5 3 33 Clint Bowyer 6 27 39 Ryan Newman 7 31 5 Mark Martin 8 19 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. 9 16 44 A.J. Allmendinger 10 28 26 Jamie McMurray 11 12 29 Kevin Harvick 12 15 42 Juan Montoya 13 21 55 Michael Waltrip 14 24 47 Marcos Ambrose 15 13 31 Jeff Burton 16 23 96 Bobby Labonte 17 29 43 Reed Sorenson 18 2 2 Kurt Busch 19 6 9 Kasey Kahne 20 11 0 David Reutimann 21 25 7 Casey Mears 22 22 12 David Stremme 23 10 17 Matt Kenseth 24 4 18 Kyle Busch 25 38 98 Paul Menard 26 5 99 Carl Edwards 27 26 6 David Ragan 28 18 16 Greg Biffle 29 20 1 Martin Truex Jr. 30 40 36 Scott Riggs 31 17 19 Elliott Sadler 32 34 20 Joey Logano * 33 14 83 Brian Vickers 34 32 77 Sam Hornish Jr. 35 33 34 John Andretti 36 35 171 David Gilliland 37 37 8 Aric Almirola 38 42 41 Jeremy Mayfield 39 36 82 Scott Speed * 40 30 7 Robby Gordon 41 41 187 Joe Nemechek 42 39 66 Dave Blaney 43 43 64 Todd Bodine
| 
|