JOHNSON OUTDUELS STEWART ON FINAL LAP FOR NASCAR WIN AT DOVER

Jimmie Johnson had the dominant car all day at Sunday’s NASCAR race at Dover, Delaware but needed a last lap charge to take the victory from Tony Stewart.  Johnson led 298 laps on the race and appeared headed to an easy victory until a bad late race pit stop cost him the lead.  Instead, he had to battle with Stewart and Greg Biffle for the final 36 laps before taking the checkered flag in a thrilling finish.

The defending Sprint Cup champion insisted that he never got discouraged due to his team’s late race miscue:

"It was a small hiccup.  "I just had to go. I had one heck of a race with Tony. That's how racing's supposed to be done."

Stewart’s second place finish which moved him the championship points lead ahead of second place Jeff Gordon and third place Johnson.  Stewart, who now co-owns his Stewart-Haas Racing team after a lengthy run for Joe Gibbs’ Racing, also became the first owner/driver to lead NASCAR’s top series since the legendary Alan Kulwicki in 1992.  Kulwicki went on to win the NASCAR championship that year before his tragic death in an airplane crash early the following year.  Many thought that Kulwicki would be the last to enjoy such success as an owner/driver due to the new era of corporate dominated NASCAR racing.  Stewart was clearly pleased with his accomplishment when told about it after the race:

“That stat there is pretty cool to be leading the points standings this early into the new venture.”

He also gave props to Johnson, admitting that once the #48 Lowe’s Chevy got clear of Biffle that it was just a matter of time:

"We just couldn't hold off Jimmie. He was like a freight train coming."

Another subplot of the race involved Dale Earnhardt, Jr. who was making his first start under new crew chief Lance McGrew.  McGrew replaced Earnhardt’s longtime crew chief Tony Eury, Jr., who was reassigned within Hendrick Motorsports operation after a bad start to the season for Dale Jr’s team...  Eury is also Dale Jr.’s cousin, and the two families have raced together dating back to Tony Eury, Sr. and the iconic “Intimidator”, Dale Earnhardt Sr.  Earnhardt is NASCAR’s most popular driver and Hendrick wants to make the #18 team as successful on the track as their driver is with the fans.  Earnhardt would finish 12^th at Dover, his best since his runner up finish at Talladega on April 26^th.  After the race, he made some complimentary remarks about his new crew chief while not trying to sound overly pleased about finishing 12^th:

"We've got to do this a lot. I don't want to give ourselves any credit yet until we can perform at this level more consistently but I'm really proud of my guys today. One of the things I liked about Lance is I felt like I was in the pit box with him all day, and I felt like he was riding with me all day. That was a good feeling. Hopefully we can keep that up."

Team owner Hendrick was no doubt relieved that his notoriously hard headed star driver and new crew chief have gotten off to a good start, and McGrew also sounded enthusiastic as he emphasized the fact that the team wouldn’t turn things around overnight:

“That was exactly where we need to be. You can't go from where we were to first. It's not going to happen."

After Johnson, Stewart and Biffle the top five at Dover were fourth place Matt Kenseth and fifth place Kurt Busch.  NASCAR races next weekend on the strange triangle shaped track at Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania.   It could be another exciting battle among NASCAR’s points leaders, with Johnson, Stewart and Gordon all having enjoyed considerable success at the Pocono track—all three men are previous winners and have a nearly identical average finish at the track (Stewart 11.8, Johnson 11.3, Gordon 11.0).