Chase Race Three, the Price Chopper 400 at Kansas Speedway was ideal for Greg Biffle to leave the whole rest of the field in his dust. Biffle ran away and cruised into the victory lane by 7.638 seconds in front of Johnson, who rallied from his 21st starting position to claim the runner-up spot.Johnson, seeking his fifth consecutive Cup title, prefered to preserve his 8 point series chase lead against Denny Hamlin who finished back 12th, ahead of JJ's "home" track (Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif.).
Biffle entered the race with a 140 chase gap to Hamlin but his victory was a tonic after a 19th-place finish at Dover.
It was a great day for us. The car ran flawless. [Crew chief Greg] Erwin just made great calls in the pits, and the car just kept getting better and better and better. I was too loose for about the first three-quarters of the race.
I didn't want to adjust on it, because I was running in the top three, but they tightened it up, and off it went, man. All it needed was a little bit of wedge in it to take off.... We were kind of down in the dumps about Dover, one of our best race tracks, and we got trapped [when forced to pit off-sequence] -- we had a top-10 car there. But we can't go back and do it over again. We'll keep doing the best we can.
Everybody asks if we're out of it, and I said, 'We're going to do the best we can. If we win 'em all, we win 'em all.' "gave him enough hopes after reducing the lead gap to 85.
Despite taking the points lead, Johnson said it's far too early to start thinking about a fifth consecutive championship.
"That would be foolish. It's way too early to think about those things -- way, way too early. ... All I can do is worry about my team, what we have to do. Again, it's early. I'm not worried about who is leading the championship right now.
I know we came [into Kansas] second. Of course, I wanted to be leading. I could care less where the 11 [Hamlin] was [Sunday]. It's just not time to worry about that stuff. After Talladega, teams and drivers can work on a strategy of protecting or taking chances. We have to get deeper into the Chase to be concerned about who the points leader is."
Kevin Harvick finished third, followed by Tony Stewart, who led a race-high 76 laps before his car faded slightly in the closing stages. Jeff Gordon won an intense battle with Carl Edwards for the fifth spot, and Matt Kenseth came home seventh, as Chase drivers claimed the top seven positions.
