This Loudon 301 might have seemed a bit tame, after Sonoma. But some of these drivers added a few more names to their hit list of to-do's

  Jimmie Johnson made a late pit stop for tires, here, and Jeff Burton didn't, and that was perhaps the difference between winning and losing (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   LOUDON, N.H.
   The greatest ever?
   Well, that might be a little over-the-top, and Dale Earnhardt Sr. might be rolling over and itching for some of this action himself, and, sure JJ probably won't hit the 200 mark like Richard Petty....but you've got to admit that Jimmie Johnson is one darned good stock car driver.
   Sunday's rally to victory was number five for the season, in 17 races, and it follows his Sonoma win just a week ago on the other side of the country.
   Just call him Mr. Coast-to-Coast.
   And if you plan to rough him up – and that sometimes seems like the only way to beat Johnson, by rattling his cage – better have a good getaway plan.
   Kurt Busch put the bump-and-run on Johnson with seven laps to go, and got a little bit away but not far enough. And with three to go Johnson was right there again, for his retort.
   "He didn't wreck me, so I've got to give him that," Johnson said. "And it is short-track racing, so I knew something was going to come.
    "I didn't think I would get hit that hard.
     "You race people how they race you, and I know he didn't try dumping me...but he came awfully close.
     "So I just thought about it: when I caught him 'Well, I hope I don't dump him, but I'm definitely going to get into him.'"
   Of course that's what Carl Edwards was thinking back at Atlanta when he was trying to pay back Brad Keselowski....
   
  

  Juan Pablo Montoya hits hard, after a shove by Reed Sorenson. Montoya says Sorenson and Jeff Gordon are now on his hit list. But Clint Bowyer, roughed up by Montoya, says Montoya only got what was coming to him. (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   That much of the race went green was somewhat surprising. This is a track that used to have some good action.
   This time....."It was a little bit eventful with us and Juan Pablo Montoya, but we recovered," Jeff Gordon, fourth, said.
   Gordon had been targeted by several drivers after his rampage at Sonoma. But apparently they all decided to let him sweat another week.
   And Gordon himself certainly didn't play it cautiously. He charged right up toward the front early, and several rivals had easy shots at him if they wanted, but they let it pass.
   
   Kyle Busch might have had a shot at the win if not for that tussle with Jeff Burton in the closing moments while battling for third. Burton apologized and accepted blame; but then he'd been on the wrong end of a similar incident with Busch at Charlotte last month.
   "We all saw it -- I got wrecked," Busch said simply. "A product of good, hard racing....
    "A guy on no tires trying to make it all with what he's got, and we screwed up."
    Burton was fading at that point, and Busch was too. "We didn't have the right-front under the car there at the end," Busch said, "and I washed up the track.  In the previous corner Kurt (his brother) got by me. 
   "Went down into turn three, and Burton got loose under me and we wrecked. That's all there is to it."
   "I know we had a little history together, and honestly that had nothing to do with that, although nobody will ever believe that," Burton said. "I just screwed up."
   And Burton, during the yellow, tried to explain that to Busch.
   
   

   Funny, we were just thinking that the action at this track might be more exciting if the drivers had to race clockwise, like they do at Sonoma. Kyle Busch (green) proves us right (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
   


    Burton himself was already upset, because his rivals had just pitted for fresh rubber (two right-sides), while crew chief Todd Berrier told him to stay out.
   "Being the leader sometimes is a disadvantage and that was one of them," Burton said ruefully.
    "Whatever the call is, I support it 100 percent. I didn't know what the right thing to do was; I didn't have a clue. Todd made the call -- but we made the call together because he makes the calls and I support him. I'm not disappointed in the calls at all.
    "In retrospect it wasn't the right thing to do, but that is real easy to say right now."
    Then again, maybe pitting right then wouldn't have been the right thing either, because Johnson said whatever Burton did, he was going to do the opposite.
    Burton's teammate Clint Bowyer said it was clear "Jeff had the best car and deserved to win it."
   But Bowyer said he glad to see rival Juan Pablo Montoya in the wall (after some bumps from Reed Sorenson and after a battle with Jeff Gordon late. "It is just getting out of hand with these cautions and these double-file restarts," Bowyer said. "Montoya. Last week it was Jeff Gordon, now it was Montoya. I'm glad he finally got what he deserved. Just beating and banging, kind of uncalled for.
    "But it is kind of the nature of the beast. That is the sandbox we have to play in."
   Hopefully not this next week at Daytona...
   Montoya defended himself, and said Jeff Gordon too was now on his list: "The guy that really messed me up was Jeff Gordon. But it was the end of the race and nobody gives you any room, and that is what happens.
    "I had been running in front of him all day, and we had a faster car. He was just getting me really loose in the corner, because he was right against my door getting in. It got me loose, so I actually bumped into him -- actually both of us got hurt.
   "He (Gordon) just didn't give me any room; he never does. He has it coming one day."
    And the Sorensen deal? Sorenson was a lap down at the time, while Montoya was running top-10.
   Montoya's view: "They told me he turned right.  I don't know.
   "I am running around the outside...I'm not bumping...I'm not making it tight.
    "It was just one of deals where I'm not surprised. Coming from Reed I wasn't surprised, to be honest."
    And the run-in with Bowyer? "I just got me loose and I just got him loose too," Montoya said. "You can run me but don't try to wreck me. That was it."
 
    Meanwhile problems seem to be continuing to mount in the Ford camp, where the Blue Oval teams are still winless as the tour heads to Daytona for the July Fourth weekend 400, nearing the midpoint of the year.
    Kasey Kahne, starting from the front and dominating early, appeared ready to snap that streak, leading 110 laps early in the 301. But just past the 200-mile mark at this flat one-mile Kahne's engine, a version of the new FR9, began to sour. It finally broke.
   "It was nice to drive, but we just had another mechanical failure...It's tough," Kahne said.
   Kahne, who has been the lead driver in the Ford camp this season, running for the Robbie Loomis-run operation, has been plagued with nagging bad luck.
   But at Michigan two weeks Kahne came close to winning, and last week at Sonoma he was one of the strongest in the field too. "We've been doing pretty good, points-wise...and that hurts again." Kahne has been trying to rally back into the playoffs, but now with nine races till the cut, he's fallen to 20th, 174 points off the cut.
   Kahne says the FR9 has been noticeably stronger than the long-used 452 that most of the other Ford teams were using here. (David Ragan was the only other man with the FR9 Sunday.)
   "When you put it on the track, they're not supposed to break," Kahne said in disappointment.
   And Kahne seemed to be upset, again, by some of his teammates. It was at Pocono three weeks ago that AJ Allmendinger blocked him hard late in the race and sent him flying into the outside wall. This time it was Paul Menard that drew criticism: "Menard raced me super-hard...and then Kyle Busch gets to him and he lets him go in the first corner that he gets to him. 
    "One corner, and he lets Kyle go. That's what made me mad. Paul just needs to do the same with each guy...and not just with me for some reason."
   When Kahne went out, Allmendinger wound up the top-finishing Ford, 10th. And he was as high as fourth late, until late-race rubbing with Ryan Newman.
   "When he just wants to run into you, he will," Allmendinger said Newman. "But that's how tight this racing is, because it was 20 to go and everybody is going to get after it. 
    "I roughed some guys up too, so you can't really complain that much about it. 
    "If you would have told me at the beginning of the day we were going to finish 10th, I would have said 'Perfect.'
    "But when you run top-five or top-six all day and you finish 10th, it doesn't feel quite as good." 
  
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   Nice crowd on hand, estimated by track officials at 91,000, to watch Jimmie Johnson win again, on a warm early summer afternoon in New Hampshire's central valley (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)