MIAMI (AP) -- Nothing could stop Jimmie Johnson's drive into the NASCAR record books. Not even a final, furious push by Carl Edwards.

Edwards led a race-high 157 laps at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Sunday's season-ending race, ran out of gas as he crossed the finish line, but still won the race for his series-high ninth victory of the year.

The effort still was not enough to wrest the Sprint Cup title away from Johnson, who locked up his third consecutive championship with a solid 15th-place run.

Johnson, driving for Hendrick Motorsports, beat Edwards by 69 points to join Cale Yarborough as the only drivers in NASCAR history to win three straight championships.

"It's the ultimate reward," Johnson said. "We worked so hard to put ourselves in this position.

"It's just total teamwork and dedication. There were times this year when things were dark, but we buckled down and got to work, and that's what it was really all about."

Yarborough won his three titles 30 years ago, under a different scoring system and in a very different NASCAR. He accomplished his feat when drivers scraped together the cash they needed to race, and the champion was the guy on top at the end of a long grueling season.

Johnson's titles have been won in the glitzy new championship format, in which the best 12 drivers compete over a 10-race sprint to the title. His team has mastered the system, proving themselves unbeatable in their pursuit of Yarborough's mark.

He has won his titles with consistency -- Johnson finished outside the top 10 just twice in this Chase, a 15th place finish at Texas -- and by winning eight of the last 30 Chase races.

He also has gotten very rich along the way, winning more than $2 million in the 10 Chase races this year.

Yarborough notched a combined $1.63 million in all three of his championship seasons.

Although the industry was keenly aware of its front-row seat to history, the celebration seemed subdued because of the economic crisis that has found its way to NASCAR. The Big Three automakers are crumbling; car owners are struggling to find sponsorship.

Widespread layoffs are expected Monday, when teams could combine to let go as many as 1,000 employees.

NASCAR officials have said the sport would suspend all testing next year to help teams save millions in their 2009 budgets.

Had the crisis hit earlier, and the testing ban been in place this season, Johnson very well might not have won the title. He struggled at the start of the year in adapting to the full-time use of NASCAR's current car.

Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus embarked on an aggressive testing schedule that helped them catch the competition by late summer.

"It's what we work for," said Knaus, the first crew chief to win three consecutive titles. "It's what we do. We don't want to do anything but race and win races and win championships."

When Edwards won back-to-back races at Atlanta and Texas to take a bite out of Johnson's points lead, Johnson rebounded with a victory at Phoenix last week to make Sunday's drive a mere formality. He needed only to finish 36th or better to win the title.

Johnson qualified 30th for Sunday's race. But he moved to the top of the speed charts in Saturday's practices, then wasted no time driving through the field at the start of the race -- picking up at least one position a lap and running inside the top five as the laps wound down.

He stopped for gas and tires with 13 laps to go, leading to his mid-pack finish.

Edwards was a gracious runner-up. After his trademark celebratory backflip, he walked over to Johnson's passing car on the track to congratulate him.

"At least we can lay our heads down tonight and know we won some races and just got beaten by a true champion," said Edwards, who gained 72 points on Johnson in the final race.

Labels: Carl Edwards, Hendrick Motorsports, Jimmie Johnson, NASCAR