Johnson keeps on winning

AVONDALE, Ariz. -- Jeff Gordon had seen enough.

After three hours of fruitlessly chasing his teammate Jimmie Johnson, Gordon pulled his No. 24 Chevrolet into the garage, wiped his face with a towel and declared that Johnson would beat him for this year’s NASCAR Nextel Cup championship.

“It’s over,” Gordon said after Johnson won the Checker Auto Parts 500 on Sunday -- and Gordon finished 10th -- at Phoenix International Raceway. “Those guys have just knocked it out of the ballpark.”

It was Johnson’s fourth consecutive win and his 10th victory of the 36-race season for his Hendrick Motorsports team, the most since Gordon won 13 races -- including four straight -- when he won the title in 1998.

“I cannot believe 10 wins in one year,” Johnson said. “I am shaking my head.”

Gordon, now 86 points behind Johnson in this year’s Chase for the Cup, is still mathematically alive heading into next Sunday’s season finale at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway.

Johnson, 32, has never won on that 1.5-mile track. But he needs only to finish 18th or better in his No. 48 Chevy next week to clinch his second consecutive title. The other 10 drivers in the Chase have been eliminated.

And if anyone should know whether Johnson is out of reach, it’s Gordon, a four-time series champion.

“Unless you lead every lap and beat Jimmie Johnson and win the race, you don’t have a shot at it,” said Gordon, who struggled with his car throughout the 312-lap race in front of a sold-out crowd of 105,000.

Gordon said that if Johnson has a catastrophic problem next week that would let Gordon win the title, “we don’t want to do it that way. Those guys have flat-out killed everybody.”

Johnson acknowledged that his points lead is “a nice comfortable position to be in, but we have to go down there [to Homestead] and run 400 miles.”

“I don’t want to act like it’s our championship yet,” he said. “I’m just trying to keep it simple and not get caught up in things.”

Clint Bowyer remained third in the Chase, but 241 points behind after finishing 11th in his Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet.

Johnson, an El Cajon native, has charged into the series lead by refusing to play it safe.

“I am terrible at playing defense,” he said. “I need every point. There’s no telling how things will go at Homestead. If we put our guard down and don’t try to score maximum points every week, we’re going to get beat.”

After dueling Matt Kenseth last week to win at Texas Motor Speedway, Johnson battled again with Kenseth, Greg Biffle, Martin Truex Jr. and others to win Sunday, and didn’t take the lead until there were 24 laps left.

NASCAR used its new Car of Tomorrow in Sunday’s race, which becomes mandatory next year. But for now, several drivers again complained that the new, safer car made passing more difficult.

Not that it bothered Johnson.

“We had a third-place car most of the day,” but “we finally figured out what our car wanted” in terms of tires and other adjustments, he said. “Everything just came together for us.”

Biffle and Kenseth, teammates at Roush Fenway Racing, finished second and third, respectively, in Fords on the one-mile Phoenix International oval.

They, too, marveled at the success of Johnson and his team, led by crew chief Chad Knaus.

“They’re just unbelievably good,” said Kenseth, the 2003 series champion. “I don’t know how you put yourself in a position to win like that every week.”

Another Roush Fenway driver, pole-sitter Carl Edwards, initially had one of the race’s strongest cars and led the opening 87 laps. But his Ford suffered engine failure on Lap 105 and he finished 42nd after lengthy repairs.

The day also ended early for two-time Phoenix winner Dale Earnhardt Jr., whose No. 8 Chevrolet got loose on Lap 119, spun and slammed into the infield wall.

“I just lost it,” said Earnhardt, who finished last. “I tried to save it the best I could, but I couldn’t.”

The race also had a historic twist, with three Indianapolis 500 winners -- Juan Pablo Montoya, Sam Hornish Jr. and Jacques Villeneuve -- competing in a top-level NASCAR race for the first time.

Montoya, about to wrap up his first full year in the series, finished 17th in a Dodge. Hornish, making his Cup debut in a Penske Racing Dodge, finished 30th.

Villenueve collided with Kasey Kahne on Lap 138, sending Villenueve’s Toyota hard into the wall. Villeneuve finished 41st and Kahne, who later crashed a second time, was 40th.

Another former open-wheel racer, Patrick Carpentier, finished 33rd in another Dodge.

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james.peltz@latimes.com