Jimmie again? Yep, Jimmie Johnson wins number 5. Just call him Mr. Coast-to-Coast

  
  
Jeff Burton (L) and Jimmie Johnson: When leader Burton didn't pit at the end of Sunday's Loudon 301, Johnson did, and those fresher tires made the difference (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)

   (Updated)

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   LOUDON, N.H.
   No, it wasn't Payback Sunday. Jeff Gordon even finished fourth.
   But it was yet another Jimmie Johnson payday, with the four-time champ playing late-race strategy correctly to win the Lenox 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, catching dominant Jeff Burton in a wrong-call move, after watching also dominant Kasey Kahne losing an engine.
   What had been predicted to be a continuation of Sonoma's rowdy racing turned out to be a rather boring afternoon out on this flat one-mile track.
   The only sharp action involved Juan Pablo Montoya, who started on the pole but wound up in the wall hard, on the driver's side, after getting nudged by Reed Sorenson, subbing for Brian Vickers and trying to reestablish himself on the major league tour. Montoya had just been involved in a bit of bumping with Gordon too.
    And the only other incident of the 2:45 race came moments later when Burton slipped into Kyle Busch in a battle for fourth with less than 20 miles to go. The two both recovered without incident but finished 11th and 12th. That incident was created when the front runners, except for leader Burton, all pitted for fresh right-side tires under the Montoya yellow.
   "That was one of those situations where if Jeff pits, then we stay out," Johnson said. "Well, he stayed out, so we pitted."
   On the restart, with 14 laps to go in the 301, Johnson easily blew past Burton, who faded and then tangled with Kyle Busch, bringing out another yellow.
   That set up the final restart with nine miles to go. Two laps later Kurt Busch put a bump-and-run on Johnson to take the lead. But Johnson rallied back to a side-by-side with Busch with three to go, finally regaining the lead with a similar bump-and-run the next lap.
   And Johnson easily slipped away, while Kurt Busch and Stewart themselves tangled, Stewart taking second in the bump.
  
  

  Jimmie Johnson in the final mile, leading Kurt Busch (outside) and Tony Stewart (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   Johnson, not normally rattled, said he didn't take Kurt's bump in stride: "When Kurt knocked me out of the way, at that point I didn't care if I won the race or even finished the race -- I just knew I was going to try to get up to him and run into him too.
   "I'm not good at doing that stuff. I usually crash myself.
   "The first time, I moved him. The second time, I moved him and was able to get by him.
   "We had so much green flag running I knew eventually we'd get a bump from somebody; it's short track racing.
   "Hopefully my wife hasn't gone into labor yet."
   Johnson did have to rally back from a bad pit stop, when a lug nut stuck in the air wrench. "And this track doesn't have a lot of grip, so track position is very important," Johnson said. "You need the whole race track to make good lap times. And when you're stuck back in traffic, it's frustrating."
    "I did what I could to get by Jimmie, and then I started counting the laps and knew there were still too many," Busch said. "To hold those guys off, well, they have very fast cars, and we just did the best we could with what we had."
   Stewart apologized for bumping Busch out of the way at the end...though given the sometimes sharp rivalry between those two, there might have been a little more to the issue. Surprisingly the two, on the media dais side-by-side for the post-race analysis, were civil and courteous and even somewhat deferential about it all.
    Busch himself said he knew he was "over-achieving" in the final miles. "We had a fifth to 10th place car," he said.
   "It was a great battle at the end, a great short track battle. It was a perfect time for us to go for it (with the move on Johnson). But I knew after four or five laps, he was going to be right there back again.
   "It was just a nice nudge, like we expect on short tracks.
   "And with Tony, well, I was a fifth to 10th place car running second...and you just have to expect that."
   Burton conceded "I'm disappointed." The decision not to pit was perhaps surprising. "But it's not easy being the leader of the race in that situation," Burton said.
    And the spin with Kyle Busch: "Kyle didn't do anything wrong. That was my fault. Kyle got loose off of turn two and I got under him, and when we got into three I just underestimated the amount of grip I would have," Burton said. "I had to correct, and he was there. It was 100 percent my fault."
   Of course Busch had knocked Burton out of a good finish at Charlotte last month late in the 600, leading to an angry pit road confrontation.
  
  
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The results of Sunday's Lenox 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway

    
    

  Yet another win for the four-time NASCAR champion, targeting a fifth straight title (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)