Johnson Scores California Win, Chase Lead

NASCAR Nextel Cup point leader is now in a must-win situation Saturday night at Richmond if he wishes to be part of the point lead heading into the Chase for the Championship.

Jimmie Johnson cruised to victory lane Sunday night at California Speedway, scoring his fifth victory of the season and ten more bonus points for the Chase, which starts in two weeks at New Hampshire.

Gordon wasn't a factor after an incident late in the race and now faces the possibility that his 317-point lead could wind up being a 10 or 20 point deficit after 400 laps at Richmond International Raceway with Johnson's win.

On the other end of the Chase spectrum, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was all but locked out of the 2007 edition of the Chase despite finishing 5th. He sits 13th in the standings, 128 points behind 12th-place Kevin Harvick with the lone regular season race remaining.

All Harvick has to do is finish 32nd Saturday and he is locked in, even if Junior leads the most laps and wins.

The race had a higher number of wrecks than normal, including two mildly series incidents.Around lap 40, Michael Waltrip cut a left front tire heading into turn three and pounded the wall while catching fire due to an oil line snapping. Waltrip walked away from the incident.

Ricky Rudd was a victim of the wreck caused by Jeff Gordon late in the race and was shown holding his arm gingerly after slapping the frontstrech wall with the left side of his No. 88 Ford Fusion.

I'm no doctor, but Rudd's reaction appeared to show either a wrist injury or a collar bone injury. Look for more on that this week.