Richmond an entertaining precursor of Chase to come

RICHMOND, Va. -- On the surface it may seem that Sunday's victory by Jimmie Johnson in the Chevy Rock & Roll 400 served merely as yet another red flag that this year's Chase for the Sprint Cup will be a three-man cage match between Johnson, Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards.

But there was so much more to Sunday's event at Richmond International Raceway, which was run about 18 hours later than originally scheduled because of weather concerns related to Tropical Storm Hanna. Remnants of the storm swept through the area Friday evening, but left so quickly it was a bit surprising -- much the same way Johnson swept to the front of the field and left RIR with his fourth win of the season late Sunday afternoon.

This was a race dominated by many sub-plots earlier, none that seemed to involve Johnson.

There was the race for the 12th and final spot in the Chase, which involved a spirited tussle between Clint Bowyer and David Ragan before Bowyer pulled in front for good and Ragan started playing pinball with other cars. There was what appeared to be a little RIR payback delivered by Dale Earnhardt Jr., whose car was the class of the field for a while, on Kyle Busch -- who had spun Earnhardt out when he was leading a race at the same track earlier this season.

But in the end, it was left to the relentless Johnson to duel it out over the final laps with Tony Stewart (watch video). Amazingly, Stewart has yet to win a race this season -- and he enters the Chase in a strange position indeed as a lame-duck driver for Joe Gibbs Racing. At the end of the season, Stewart will be leaving JGR to be owner-driver for the newly formed Stewart-Haas Racing -- which ironically will receive technical and intellectual assistance from Johnson's No. 48 team and the rest of the gang at Hendrick Motorsports.

"Obviously, we had a great car. That's something we haven't had enough of this year," Stewart said of his run.

Respect or no respect?

Stewart's No. 20 Toyota just wasn't quite good enough to catch Johnson. But then no one has been able to catch him much recently. Sunday's win was Johnson's second in a row -- matching what he pulled off heading into last year's Chase, when he went on to capture his second consecutive championship.

Now he's aiming to become only the second driver in the history of the sport to win three titles in a row. Johnson had just celebrated the first birthday of his life when Cale Yarborough won the first of his three consecutive championships in 1976, and planned all along to use Sunday as a springboard into launching his pursuit of a rare piece of stock-car racing history. (Continued)