Sauter was a sitting duck and was quickly dispatched with Johnson then moving past Stewart for third place before rejoining battle with Kenseth over second spot. Despite a tough fight Kenseth had to give best to Johnson just like he did last weekend in Texas with Johnson taking over second place on lap 280, which only left Truex between Johnson and a fourth consecutive victory.
Truex Jr was no real competition on older tyres and Johnson swept by with ease on lap 289, duly reeling off the final 23 laps with a comfortable margin to seal his tenth win of the season and his 33rd since graduating to the Cup Series ranks on a full time basis in 2002. More importantly for Johnson, he also added more than 50 points to his lead over Gordon in the standings and now only needs a top 20 finish next weekend at Homestead to retain his title.
The main point of interest in the final 20 laps was over second place with Greg Biffle fighting his way from seventh on the final restart to grab the position from his teammate Kenseth with seven laps to go. Kenseth kept Stewart at bay to complete the top three with Newman rounding out the top five ahead of Harvick and Truex Jr.
Kyle Busch's bid to make history by becoming the first driver to win in the Craftsman Truck Series, the Busch Series and the Nextel Cup Series at the same track on the same weekend came up a little short but his drive from 38th on the grid to eighth was impressive nonetheless while Jeff Burton and a disappointed Gordon rounded out the top ten. For Gordon the result was his 29th top 10 effort from 35 starts so far this year but it probably wasn't enough to keep his bid for a fifth title within realistic reach such has been the late season surge from Johnson.
Eleventh place also wasn't enough to keep Clint Bowyer alive in the title hunt although the driver of the #07 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet still holds third place in the points table.
![Jimmie Johnson - Kobalt/Lowe's Chevrolet [pic credit: GM media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/300233.jpg)
