Strategy Win: Johnson, Knaus opt for four tires, win in Vegas

The Sprint Cup Series’ Shelby American came down to a simple question: Two tires or four? And as always, Chad Knaus made the correct call, putting four tires on the No. 48 Lowe’s Chevy en route to the win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday.

Jimmie Johnson came to pit road running second to Jeff Gordon — who dominated for a race-high 219 laps led — during the event’s final caution with 39 laps to go. Johnson lined up fourth for the restart behind Clint Bowyer, who did not pit, Gordon and Kevin Harvick, who each took two tires. When the green flag fell it was apparent the extra rubber would pay off, as Johnson’s Chevy blew past Bowyer’s No. 33 machine and went to work on his Hendrick Motorsports teammate.

The duo staged a classic late-race duel, with Gordon holding off his protégé until lap 250 of 267 when Johnson completed the pass in Turn 4. From there he pulled away, stabilizing the lead and eventually winning by 1.874 seconds.

“It [four tires] really made the difference at the end," Johnson said. "I wasn't sure I would get away from Jeff because it took everything I could just to get alongside him, all those laps I was trying. But once I got by him, we got away from him and off we went."

The win was the second straight for Johnson in the three-race old 2010 season and 49th of his Cup career. He has now won two of the season’s first four races on three occasions since 2006.

Gordon admitted that in hindsight four tires were the way to go, although he thought track position would rule the day.

“If we won the race we'd look like geniuses — Steve [Letarte, crew chief] would have,” Gordon said of the two-tire call. “The fact that we lost the race, now Chad looks like a genius. That's how it goes sometimes. When you're leading, that's the toughest position to be in, to make that call.

“I talked to Steve briefly after the race. He's pretty upset, obviously. I think he just felt like more people were gonna take two tires. Shoot, we were thinking for a split second to stay out. If we'd have done that, I think we would have finished 10th.

“You know, I felt like we needed to come in and get some tires, but I felt like two tires was the right call, too. We just needed the 48 to take two. They did the opposite of us. That won the race for them.”

Harvick got by Gordon with four laps remaining, registering his second runner-up finish in a row to Johnson.

“We had the opportunity there at the end and just kind of got … we were fifth or sixth there on the [final] restart, kind of lost the same distance that we were behind at the end of the race,” Harvick said. “You know, having a better Friday [qualifying effort] would have been very beneficial for us to keep our track position where we needed it to be there at the end. If we had been second or third, I think we could have run with him.

“Do I think we could have beat him? I don't know. But I think we would have at least had a shot.”

Mark Martin drove to a fourth-place showing for the second straight week. Matt Kenseth ended a roller-coaster day in fifth. Joey Logano, Tony Stewart, Bowyer, Kasey Kahne and Greg Biffle rounded out the top 10.

NASCAR was forced to go to a manual system of operating the caution lights after two early-race malfunctions. The track lights failed to go from yellow to green on a lap 54 restart, forcing another caution to get things straightened out. The caution lights then came on at lap 108, although the race had not been yellow-flagged.

In between the two occurrences, Earnhardt-Ganassi teammates Juan Pablo Montoya and Jamie McMurray took one another out of contention. McMurray, the Daytona 500 champion, appeared to get loose going into Turn 3 on lap 93. He made contact with Montoya’s No. 42, which slid into the wall and collected pole-sitter Kurt Busch as well as McMurray.

Montoya had harsh words for his teammate, saying, “It really ruined our day. This, with the Chase, it really doesn’t help. We had a problem last week with the motor and this week this. It’s painful.

“He ran me into the fence out of [Turn] 2, as well, and going through 3 [he] plain and simple just wrecked us. He’s not doing himself too many favors.”

To his credit, McMurray took full responsibility for the accident and didn’t read too much into Montoya’s comments.

“You’re probably just frustrated with what happened on the race track,” McMurray said. “You guys probably shouldn’t put a lot of stock into what he said when you ask somebody something immediately after getting crashed. They typically don’t have nice things to say.”

Montoya finished 37th and finds himself in an early-season hole at 26th in the point standings. McMurray slipped to 14th courtesy of his 34th-place run.

Harvick leads the standings after three weeks by 47 markers over Bowyer. Martin is third, Kenseth fourth and Johnson fifth.