Despite finishing five spots behind winner Jamie McMurray, Jimmie Johnson nearly locked up his fourth consecutive Cup title with his sixth place showing at Talladega on Sunday.

After a mostly uneventful 450-plus miles of racing, the Ryan Newman and Mark Martin woke up the crowd by cartwheeling down the track in two seperate incidents.

Newman flipped with five laps to go and ended up on his roof, resting in the grass.  The race was in caution for 13 minutes while crews tried to cut him out.  That delay force NASCAR to attempt a 2-lap sprint to the finish.

But that shot at a green flag finish was ruined when Mark Martin flipped shortly after the restart.  McMurray crossed the line under caution and ended his 86-race drought without a win.

While Newman was waiting upside down to be freed from the wreckage that used to be his car, Johnson pulled into the pits to get a full tank of gas.  That decision proved benificial when Jeff Gordon and several others cars hit empty allowing Johnson to move all the way up to sixth.

Johnson now leads the Sprint Cup Standings by 184 points with three races to go.  Martin remains second, 8 points ahead of Gordon.  The only driver that manage to pick up any ground on Johnson was Kasey Kahne, whose second place finish still left him 414 points back and in ninth place overall.

Joey Logano, Greg Biffle and Jeff Burton finished ahead of Johnson while Michael Waltrip, Brad Kaselowski, Elliot Sadler and Bobby Labonte rounded out to top ten.

The Chase heads west to the Texas Motor Speedway for the Dickies 500.  Jeff Gordon won the Samsung 500 back in April, his first win ever at the Fort Worth track.  Johnson finished second.