Jimmie Johnson grabs his 3rd win at The Brickyard!

The 48 was the fastest car in the field, when it mattered most -- with 23 to go. It came down to capitalizing on Juan Pablo Montoya’s pit road error and holding off his teammate, Mark Martin to become the 1st NASCAR driver to win two consecutive Brickyard 400′s.

“It means the world to me,” Johnson said.  “I got a lot of years left in me.  Hopefully four, five, six time race winner here would be awfully cool.”

(Photo Credit: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

From the start, the race looked like it belonged to Juan Pablo Montoya. He took the lead on lap 5 and out ran all competitors to lead a race-high 116 of 160 laps. On a green flag pit stop with 35 laps remaining, Montoya was caught speeding down pit road. The penalty put him in the back of the pack.

“I swear on my children and my wife that I was not speeding!” he shouted over the team radio. “There is no way! Thank you NASCAR for screwing my day.” He calmed down enough after the race to tell the media, “I was cruiseing. I was super fast!”

It seemed like a deja-vu flashback to Montoya’s dominating 2000 Indianapolis 500 win. He led 167 of 200 laps to win that day. Montoya finished 11th. It set him back one spot to 10th in the point standings.

“That would have been an amazing story,” Johnson said. “Those guys were quick all day long.  Really, look at every practice session, qualifying.  Not only is that team getting better, but racing with Juan on the track, the guy is really a great talent.  I think if you look at guys that have come from the open wheel world, he’s by far done better than anyone. Then he’s becoming a stock car driver.  It’s got to be tough to forget everything that’s brought you to this level, you’ve built your success on, forget all that and start over.  He’s jumped into this thing head first.  He’s committed himself to doing a great job.  That team is getting stronger.  I think we’ll see a lot more of Juan. I know today didn’t work for him for points for the Chase, but I see him making the Chase and I see him being a threat.  He’s doing an amazing job.”

It was the 2nd consecutive race that Hendrick drivers finished 1-2. Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon finished 1-2 at Chicagoland. Polesitter Martin finished 0.400 seconds behind his teammate.

“Well, you know, I’m grateful to my race team,” runner-up Mark Martin said. “I was hoping to be in the fray, and we were definitely in that.  Drove my heart out.  Gave it everything I had. I’m actually just grateful that I had a chance to race for the win.  Would have liked to have won it, but got beat by Superman.”

What did Johnson say about being referred to as “Superman” by Mark Martin? “The way he is, what he asks of his team, the way he interacts, his dedication, it’s contagious,” Johnson said. “(It) brings out the best of all of us on the race team.  I could see Gordon, myself, Junior, all of us looking at ourselves in the mirror, doing a better job, pushing ourselves harder.  Look at Mark, the guy is non stop. I’m really proud to call him a teammate and a friend.  The fact that he said those great things is pretty cool.  We’ve got to think up something for him.  He is one unique individual.” Johnson suggested that maybe they should call Martin the “bionic man”.

Johnson’s win gave owner Rick Hendrick his 7th Brickyard win. All Hendrick drivers scored top-10 finishes, except for Dale Earnhardt Jr. Battling a stomach virus all weekend, Dale Jr started 3rd and was competitive throughout the race, until blowing an engine with 33 to go and logging a 36th place finish.

Tony Stewart, one of the favorites to win, finished 3rd. “There’s no shame in that,” Stewart said. “43 cars and we ran third today.  To come here and run third, we’re doing the things that we need to do.  It didn’t get us those 10 bonus points, but it may not come down to those 10 points at the end of the year.” Stewart leads the point standings by 192 points over Jimmie Johnson, who moves up 1 spot to 2nd place.

Greg Biffle finished 4th followed by Brian Vickers, Kevin Harvick, Kasey Kahne, David Reutimann, Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth.

For the (unofficial) race results, click here.

Tires proved not to be an issue as Goodyear and numerous drivers had reassured fans leading up to race time. There were only 3 cautions that slowed the 400 mile race for 14 laps. Kyle Busch was the only driver to have a tire issue. He cut a tire on lap 59 bringing out the 2nd caution of the day. Busch finished 38th dropping him out of the top 12 in points eligible to compete in the Chase. “I think it’s pretty self-explanatory that we’re trying to fight for a spot in the Chase,” said Busch. Kyle fell 4 spots to 14th in the standings.

There were 9 lead changes among 7 drivers: M. Martin 1-4; J. Montoya 5-30; T. Stewart 31-32; D. Gilliland 33; J. Montoya 34-92; C. Mears 93; J. Montoya 94-124; B. Vickers 125-126; M. Martin 127-136; J. Johnson 137-160