SONOMA, Calif. -- If it weren't for bad luck, Jimmie Johnson wouldn't have had any luck at all in Sunday's Toyota/Save Mart 350 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Infineon Raceway.
Victimized by cautions that interrupted two cycles of green-flag pit stops, the two-time defending Cup champion nevertheless salvaged a 15th-place finish at the 1.99-mile road course and held on to sixth place in the championship standings.
Points leader Kyle Busch won the race -- his fifth victory of the year -- and padded his advantage to 103 points over second-place Jeff Burton, who finished 13th. After a late race wreck dropped Tony Stewart, Jamie McMurray and Kevin Harvick from contention and forced a green-white-checkered-flag finish, David Gilliland came home second, a career best, followed by Jeff Gordon, Clint Bowyer and Casey Mears.
Having qualified second behind polesitter Kasey Kahne, Johnson parlayed his front-row starting position to early advantage -- until he waited one lap too long to bring the No. 48 Lowe's Chevrolet to the pits for the first round of green-flag stops.
"I want to say hello to all our Lowe's employees," crew chief Chad Knaus said on his radio after the command to start engines. "Sit back, relax and enjoy the race. It's going to be a good 110 laps."
"All right, bud," Knaus added to Johnson. "Rock and roll."
"Jimmie, watch for the flagman over there," said spotter Stevie Reeves as the field took its pace laps. "That's where they're going to do one-to-go all day. OK, coming to green here. Have a good one. The 9 car (Kahne) is already complaining they don't have a clutch, not that they'd need it on the start. Green flag!"
On lap 5, Johnson passed Kahne for the lead. "Fastest car on the track," Knaus told his driver.
"Good job," Knaus added on lap 12 as the Lowe's Chevy expanded its advantage to more than two seconds over Kurt Busch after Kahne had begun to fade through the field.
"The 99 (Carl Edwards) is seven seconds back running fourth," Knaus told Johnson on lap 17, indicating that the Roush Fenway driver was working his way rapidly toward the front. "Good job."
"You're doing a really good job," Knaus told Johnson on lap 22, but Edwards was gaining on the Lowe's Chevy at almost a second per lap.
"Got a lapped car behind you, about five car-lengths back, Reeves warned on lap 25. "He pitted for new tires."
Gilliland came to the pits on lap 27, beginning what was an ill-fated round of pit stops, from the Lowe's team's point of view. Knaus kept Johnson on the track until lap 30, when NASCAR called a caution for debris in turn 11 just as the Lowe's Chevy was heading for pit road.
Unlike oval-track racing, where staying out while others pit can be beneficial, Johnson track position suffered significantly because he had to pit under yellow on lap 32, while those who already had come to the pits remained on the track and moved up in the running order.
"Get it good and full, Rich," Knaus said to gas man Rich Gutierrez before the stop. "Get it good and full."
"Do I need to be saving fuel?" Johnson asked.
"A little bit here wouldn't hurt," Knaus replied. "The 20 was on pit road when the yellow came out. The 99's real fast, bud. It might be wise to let him go."
Johnson restarted 12th on lap 33, and though he had led 27 laps before the caution, the Lowe's Chevy didn't perform as well in traffic as it had out front in clean air. Greg Biffle was in the lead for the restart, but before he reached turn 4 of the 12-turn course, he spun off the pavement.
"He's off the track to the top," Reeves told Johnson, indicating that the Lowe's Chevy should take the low line through the corner.
"This thing is so tight the first few laps," Johnson radioed after the restart.
"Settle in, bud," Knaus replied. "You'll be fine."
On lap 35, Knaus added, "All right, bud. Third lap. Should be good here."
On lap 38, Reeves told Johnson about approaching traffic. "Got this 19 car (Elliott Sadler) coming up on you here," he said. "Keep an eye out."
On lap 39 Sadler passed Johnson for the 11th position.
"I'm tight, man," Johnson told Knaus on lap 40. "I can't turn."
"Just try to do everything you were doing when you were in the lead," Knaus responded. "You're not running close to the lap times you were running on that first run."
Over the next four laps, the Lowe's Chevrolet lost three more positions.
"Jimmie, is something wrong with your brakes?" Knaus asked on lap 47.
"I don't think so," Johnson replied. "I just can't make the turns without slowing down."
"Ten-four," rejoined Knaus, "just 60 laps to go. Take a minute, make a check and make sure everything looks good inside there. Make sure you're getting all the way off the throttle and all the way on the brakes."
"I can finally get up through 1 and through 9 without having to fight it," Johnson radioed on lap 51. Seconds later, Johnson gained two positions to 15th when Denny Hamlin spun in turn 11 and Clint bowyer went wide to avoid him. But on lap 53, road-course specialist Ron Fellows, driving the No. 01 Chevy in place of Regan Smith, took the 15th spot from Johnson.
"Keep digging, bud," Knaus told his driver on lap 55. "If we lose anymore time, we're not going to be able to pit and stay on the lead lap."
"You're about a second off the leaders there, bud," Knaus added two laps later.
"The 24's pitting ahead of you," Reeves told Johnson on lap 69 as Gordon brought his DuPont Chevrolet to pit road for a green-flag stop. Johnson remained on the track, once again for one lap too many, as the caution flag flew on lap 70 for a collision involving Robby Gordon, Kurt Busch and Max Papis.
Again Johnson had to pit under caution and lost more track position.
"We'll be lining up about last here," Knaus said, exaggerating Johnson's predicament. "So just use your bumper and get up to the front as quick as you can here. Four tires. Make your adjustments. Get it full of fuel so we don't have anything to worry about."
Before the restart on lap 75, Knaus told Johnson, "Go ahead and turn your brake fans on. You're probably going to be busy here. Thirty-six (laps) to go when you take the flag."
In fact, the Lowe's Chevy restarted 21st but had time to gain just one position before Juan Pablo Montoya spun his No. 42 Dodge after cutting across the front on Marcos Ambrose's Dodge. Johnson was 20th from the next restart on lap 78.
By lap 90 Johnson had moved up to 15th, but there was one more calamity waiting for him.
"The 99 (Edwards) and the 83 (Brian Vickers) are catching the back of your pack," Knaus told Johnson on lap 96. "They're quite a bit faster than you guys, so watch out."
But the worst was yet to come. "We just got turned, guys," Reeves reported on lap 100, after Greg Biffle spun the Lowe's Chevy and dropped Johnson to 23rd position. "He drove right into the back of us."
"You've got one in the tire wall over here, starting in (turn) 10," Reeves radioed three laps later, after David Reutimann slammed into the tire barrier to bring out the fourth caution of the race.
"You want to come in and get two tires?" Knaus asked, explaining that Johnson would probably lose 10 positions in the process of getting fresh rubber.
"I can't pass 10 cars in five laps, so let's stay out," Johnson decided
"What did you have that run, Jimmie?" Knaus asked, referring to the handling of the car.
"Still tight, but the forward bite went away," Johnson answered. "The front of the car stayed the same, but the back fell off faster."
Johnson restarted 22nd on lap 105. "If Terry Labonte passes you under the green flag, you're in big trouble," Knaus said, referring to the driver who lined up behind the Lowe's Chevy.
Two more cautions interrupted the balance of the race, and by the finish, Johnson had climbed to 15th.
"Even when we were up front leading, the car was a little tight through the center of the corners and as the day went on and the track took rubber, I just got tighter and tighter through the center," Johnson said after the race. "It was a great effort. Track position really helped.
"Our qualifying effort really helped. Unfortunately, we missed the call on the strategy. ... You just don't know when cautions are going to come. So it was just one of those deals, but it was a frustrating day. I got turned around late in the race, and that didn't help us any. But we rallied back and got an OK finish, and we'll move on."
