Johnson finds Chase form with convincing victory

FONTANA, Calif. -- Forget the rivalry between Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards.

In Sunday's Pepsi 500 at Auto Club Speedway, there was only one car that counted, the No. 48 Chevrolet driven by Jimmie Johnson, who served notice that he and crew chief Chad Knaus may have their intermediate racetrack problems solved just in time for the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

Johnson led 228 of 250 laps and held off a late-race challenge from Greg Biffle, who lost ground when the water temperature in his No. 16 Ford skyrocketed to 260 degrees when a paper wrapper stuck to his grille after a restart on Lap 223.

Johnson beat Biffle to the finish line by 2.076 seconds (watch video). Denny Hamlin ran third, followed by Kevin Harvick and Matt Kenseth. Edwards, Busch, Kasey Kahne, David Reutimann and Clint Bowyer completed the top 10.

"It was an awesome racecar all night long," Johnson said. "More than anything, I'm happy to close the deal. It's very, very rare that you have a car that dominant -- and usually you end up doing something stupid."

In winning his third race of the season and the 36th of his career -- breaking a tie with Mark Martin for 17th on the all-time victory list -- Johnson also shattered Biffle's record of 168 laps led at Fontana, set in 2006.

Johnson qualified for the Chase with one race to go -- Saturday at Richmond -- before the field is set. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (11th Sunday) and Jeff Burton (17th) also clinched berths, making five of the 12 spots taken along with Busch and Edwards.

"We're just happy to get a victory at a big track," Johnson said. "There are seven of these kinds of tracks in the Chase, and that's where we've been off a little bit."

"Off" was not even in the No. 48 team's vocabulary Sunday night.

"I'll tell you what: The 48 was phenomenal," said Biffle, who will clinch a spot in the Chase simply by starting the Chevy Rock & Roll 400 at Richmond. "[We had] the fastest guys on pit road [Sunday night]. Time after time they were getting me out first.

"And our Ford engine was strong. We weren't getting beat in the engine. He just beat me around the corners just a little bit."

Johnson's dominance forced other teams to gamble in the pits. Biffle, Edwards, A.J. Allmendinger, Brian Vickers and Ryan Newman took two tires on Lap 163 and held the top five positions for a restart on Lap 166.

Less than two laps after the restart, however, Johnson had regained the lead after passing Biffle through Turns 3 and 4.

Two tires didn't work, but neither did four.

After a slower-than-usual pit stop on Lap 183 -- under caution for Robby Gordon's spin off Turn 4 -- Johnson restarted fourth on Lap 187. Within three laps he had run down Reutimann, Edwards and Biffle to regain the top spot.

Notes: David Ragan kept his Chase hopes alive with a solid 13th-place run. Ragan is 13th in the Cup standings, 17 points behind 12th-place Bowyer. ... Kahne's eighth-place run Sunday left him 48 points out of 12th, the final Chase-eligible position.