Jimmie Johnson's slow pit stop late in Saturday night's race at Darlington appeared to be no fault of the crew. Credit: Autostock

Sunoco Pit Move: Darlington

Pit move of the race

Jimmie Johnson refused to say that he lost the Dodge Charger 500 on pit road, instead blaming his fourth-place finish on a lack of track position.

Dodge Charger 500 Results Pos. Driver Make 1. Greg Biffle Ford 2. Jeff Gordon Chevy 3. Matt Kenseth Ford 4. Jimmie Johnson Chevy 5. Dale Earnhardt Jr. Chevy 6. Ryan Newman Dodge 7. Kyle Busch Chevy 8. Mark Martin Ford 9. Jeff Burton Chevy 10. Denny Hamlin Chevy • Complete results, click here • Driver standings, click here Pit MoveOvercrowding sets Jimmie Johnson back at Darlington Sign up for TrackPass now BUY THE NEXTEL i836

Johnson started a lowly 25th -- no man's land for him -- and he was forced to play catch-up all night long. Because he had such a bad qualifying lap, he didn't have a good pit stall, and that ended up hurting him.

On a green-flag stop on Lap 316, Johnson lost a few seconds when he had to slow to let Ken Schrader enter the box directly ahead of him. By the time he finally made it back onto the track, winner Greg Biffle was long gone.

"I think it affected us from finishing third or second or somewhere in there. I got held up a little bit," said Johnson. "But it was a good performance for us. Qualifying didn't go like we wanted. We worked very hard trying to get this race car situated in the last practice.

"We had a good car and came from 25th to the front. We were a little too loose all night long, but I'm very happy with our performance."

Biffle short-pits, makes it work

Biffle was the first of the front-runners to pit, but at Darlington, that always causes a chain-reaction of pit stops. Once Biffle decided to come in on Lap 314, it forced everyone else's hand.

Unlike Johnson, Biffle also had an easy time getting off and on pit road because it was much-less crowded at the time.

"I felt like I wanted to take that chance tonight. I felt like we had so much bad luck that it's not possible for us to pit two laps before everybody else and the caution is going to come out," Biffle said. "I knew it was gonna be tight. It was just a chance I was willing to take and it won us the race. I don't know, if I had to do it over again I guess I'd do the same thing. I just don't really know."

What happened to Kurt Busch?

Kurt Busch was one of the favorites heading into Darlington, but the jack fell during his Lap 151 stop, costing him 15 spots on the track.

"We were about a seventh-place car the first third of the race," said Busch. "The car rolled off the jack and that put us way back in the field. It was just way too loose or way too tight the rest of the night. Anything we did to it would make it go from one extreme to the other.

"Just the least adjustment made it go from super loose to super tight. It was just a really weird night."

Busch has just one top-five in 2006.

Quotable

"Again for another week it was my crew that got us spots off pit road to keep me up front. We'll take that here at Darlington. " -- Kyle Busch, who already has six top-10 finishes in 2006.