In keeping with the tradition of "Black Friday," one of the busiest shopping days of the year, Hendrick Durham Auto Mall is pleased to announce discounts and rebates of up to $20,000 on in-stock 2008 and 2009 inventory.

But hurry. This offer ends at 6 p.m. Sat., Nov. 29, 2008.

We have it all at Hendrick Durham Auto Mall: Superior Selection, Superior Prices, Superior Customer Service.

Formerly Rick Hendrick Chevrolet of Durham, we now offer a full line of Pontiac, Buick, GMC, Cadillac and Chevy.

The dealership management and staff wishes you a happy Thanksgiving and holiday season and invites you to consider us for all your transportation needs.

The dealership will be closed on Thanksgiving but will be open under normal operating hours on Friday and Saturday. Call us at (919) 682-0451 for more information.

Labels: Black Friday, Hendrick Durham Auto Mall, Thanksgiving

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

'El Cajon Posse' Out In Force For Johnson Celebration

AVONDALE, Ariz. (AP) - Just when Carl Edwards seemed to have Jimmie Johnson on the ropes, the two-time defending NASCAR champion delivered the knockout punch.

Johnson moved inches away from his record-tying third consecutive Cup championship with a dominating victory Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway, where he led a race-high 217 of the 313 laps to deflate Edwards' title hopes.

Johnson heads into next week's season finale with a 141-point lead over Edwards. He needs only to finish 36th or better to join Cale Yarborough (1976-78) as the only drivers in NASCAR history to win three straight Cup titles.

"This is what I've worked my whole life for," Johnson said in Victory Lane.

The victory was his third straight at Phoenix and had Edwards on the edge of conceding after his own fourth-place finish.

"It's still possible," Edwards sighed. "It's not probable."

No, it's not. Not with the way Johnson is running.

Johnson has made a mockery of the Chase-for-the-Championship format, reeling off 14 victories in the 49 races since NASCAR adopted the format in 2004. He contended for the title in 2004 and 2005, only to come up just short both seasons.

He's on the verge of joining Yarborough, David Pearson, Lee Petty and Darrell Waltrip as a three-time champion.

Jeff Gordon, Johnson's Hendrick Motorsports teammate, has four titles. Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty won a NASCAR-record seven.

Johnson has done it in dominating fashion, particularly this year; he's finished in the top 10 in seven Chase races, and his lowest finish was a sub-par 15th last week at Texas.

Edwards won at Texas, his second straight victory, to take a bite off of Johnson's lead.

Johnson struggled through Saturday's final practice session and suddenly looked vulnerable. But crew chief Chad Knaus worked with Johnson late into the night to figure out a better setup and strategy, and the duo had the field covered from the start on Sunday.

"Jimmie stepped up," Knaus said. "We came here with something a little bit different than what we ran in the past. It worked great for qualifying, but not in the race. Jimmie brought a lot to the table in pointing things out to me. We put a different setup in the car, and it was fast all day."

With a crowd of friends -- including professional baseball players Brian and Marcus Giles -- watching from his pit box, Johnson started from the pole but gave way to Jamie McMurray on the first lap. He did not take the lead until Lap 81, but was never challenged from there.

McMurray briefly moved out front again after a round of late pit stops. But Johnson blew past him in Turn 2 of a restart and hardly was challenged again.

Kurt Busch made a brief run at Johnson in the closing laps but graciously settled for second.

"He's doing something pretty special," Busch said of Johnson. "It's really a privilege to finish second to him today."

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Labels: Hendrick Motorsports, Jimmie Johnson

FORT WORTH, Texas (NASCAR.com) - NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Carl Edwards, doing his best to keep Hendrick Motorsports driver Jimmie Johnson from claiming his third straight points championship, has spent the past weeks insisting that the Chase for the Cup is not over.

Perhaps he's right. Sunday, Edwards won his eighth race of the season and chopped nearly 80 points off Johnson's lead in the standings.

After holding off Johnson's teammate and race runner-up Jeff Gordon to win the Dickie's 500, Edwards said he no longer is even listening to claims that Johnson's lead remains insurmountable with two races to go. He's going to "goof around with my buddies" back home in Missouri during the week and then focus on winning on the weekends.

It took fuel strategy Sunday just as much as good driving for Edwards to win. Squeezing 69 laps out of his last tank of fuel at 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway, Edwards slowed his speed to a relative crawl in the closing laps and rolled across the finish line 8.31 seconds ahead of Gordon, who also stretched his fuel mileage.

Johnson, meanwhile, finished 15th -- a lap down. He saw his lead trimmed from 183 points prior to Sunday to 106 entering next weekend's race in Phoenix.

Edwards again will have his work cut out for him next Sunday; Johnson has won the last two races at Phoenix.

Jamie McMurray finished third Sunday after giving up the lead for a gas-and-go on lap 321 of the 334-lap race. Clint Bowyer was fourth, followed by Greg Biffle, Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex Jr., Matt Kenseth and David Reutimann.

Edwards, who led a career-high 212 laps, opted for four tires during a pit stop on lap 264 and dropped from the lead to seventh for a restart on lap 270. McMurray led the parade of drivers who took two tires during the lap 264 pit stops and rolled off pit road with the lead.

McMurray and Bowyer streaked away from the rest of the field after the restart, but both had to pit for fuel with fewer than 15 laps left, as did Biffle. By then, Edwards had worked his way into the fourth position, and he inherited the lead on lap 322 after all three cars ahead of him had stopped for fuel.

From that point on, Edwards drove in conservation mode as crew chief Bob Osborne made the commitment to the fuel gamble.

Edwards, who won at Texas in April, became the first driver to sweep both events at TMS in the same season.

"My guys did a great job," Edwards said. "We took off there for a while. We made probably the wrong call getting four tires, but Bob came up with a way to win that thing, anyway. That was great.

"First, Bob said: 'We're two-tenths of a lap short, so conserve. Then he came back and said: 'No, we're four laps short. Just go real hard, and we'll pit.' Then he came back and said: 'Well conserve.' Just by default, I kind of knew he wasn't too sure about it. But I'm really glad it worked out. It's unreal.

"It was a great day," Edwards said. "We're closing ground on Jimmie. That's cool."

Asked about Edwards gambling on running the final 69 laps without pitting, Johnson said: "I feel that they knew they were going to make it.

"When they started that last run, I really expected the 99 to fly through the pack and end up in the lead in a short period of time," Johnson said. "It just took them a long time to get going. I thought: 'Well, maybe his car isn't working right. But, I believe in the end they were saving fuel, they were playing that card and if it worked, great, if not, they still were going to gain a bunch of points on us."

Johnson said the championship chase, with races at Phoenix and Homestead remaining is still far from over.

"We've got to fight hard and continue to fight hard," he said. "We go to a great track for us next week."

Johnson is trying to become only the second driver to claim three consecutive points championships, joining Cale Yarborough.

Labels: Carl Edwards, Hendrick Motorsports