It was Jimmie Johnson’s race to lose, but that wasn’t the outcome Sunday after scoring his first victory at a road course!

photo credit: Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images

“I’d say the bottom line to it is I love road course racing. I always have,” Johnson said. “I grew up racing off-road trucks, they were on road courses with jumps. Made a name for myself in that style of racing. To come into the Cup Series and not have success early irritated me. Chad in general, if there’s a track on the schedule, doesn’t matter what design it is, if that’s our weak spot, he’s gonna make it better. So we kind of got in this routine of road course, road course, road course. That’s why today is so special to us, why it has meant so much.”

Johnson lead a race-high 55 of 110 laps, but gave it up to pit after the second caution flag flew. With Johnson stuck back in the field, it was Marcos Ambrose who appeared as the new dominant leader. Ambrose was out in front for 35 laps, but suffered a mechanical issue on the final restart.

“I was leading the race and had trouble getting the motor cranked back up a little bit there,” Ambrose explained. “I was trying to save fuel, and the motor shut off. It didn’t recrank the way it should. I didn’t stop rolling, but it is what it is.”

Johnson took the lead back with 6 laps to go and cruised on to his fourth win this season and his first at a road course.

“I feel bad for him and his team owners,” Johnson said. “His team owners gave me my chance in Nationwide in ’98 maybe it was. So I’m very familiar with the team. I think Marcos had a very fast car in the short runs. I had a try or two at him before that, couldn’t get by him. So I’m not sure I would have gotten by him. It was definitely a gift kind of handed to us, as Chad said on the radio to me. From that point on, I just needed to get a good restart and get away from those guys.”

Robby Gordon scored a runner-up finish.

“It was obviously a good run for us,” Gordon said. “We came here to win the race. But second place is pretty darn close to winning it. My team needs a little bit of morale here and there. This will boost morale back at the workshop. I will say that we will come to Watkins Glen guns blazing. We’ll get a lot of confidence going into the Glen and spend a bunch of time getting more rear grip. At the end of the day, that’s what we struggled on with Jimmie. At the top of the hill, it got loose on me, had to save it, Kevin closed the gap on me a couple times. We have to go to work on our rear tires and rear grip.”

Points leader Kevin Harvick went home third.

‘We’re fortunate to be where we’re at in the points right now,” Harvick said referring to his points lead. “We’re able to race hard every lap and really not have to worry about what’s going on with the points. So each race is a different race. Today we were racing in the top five all day. You’re just trying to figure out what you got to do to try to win the race. You know, those guys have been running good and so have we. Just got to keep at it. I don’t know who is second now, but just race hard whoever it is. How many weeks we got left till the Chase?”

10 races.

Polesitter Kasey Kahne failed to lead a lap and spent the majority of his day trying to get back to the front. Kahne finished 4th. Jeff Gordon was 5th followed by Ambrose, Greg Biffle, Boris Said, Tony Stewart and Juan Pablo Montoya rounded out the top-10.

For the (unofficial) race results, click here (nascar.com)

There were 7 cautions for 14 laps and 12 lead changes among 8 drivers:  0; J. Johnson 1-33; T. Stewart 34-35; M. Ekstrom 36-42; J. Johnson 43-57; M. Truex Jr. 58; B. Said 59-60; M. Ambrose 61-79; C. Bowyer 80; E. Sadler 81; B. Said 82-87; M. Ambrose 88-103; J. Johnson 104-110

Harvick continues to lead the standings while Johnson moved up to second, 140 points behind.