MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Jimmie Johnson pulled away from Rusty Wallace and Ryan Newman on a restart with seven laps to go to climb four spots in the season-ending title chase, but another solid performance by Kurt Busch moved him one step closer to winning NASCAR's first playoff championship.

"You've got to step up to the plate and race hard in each of these final 10" races, Busch said after finishing fifth, his sixth top-six run in as many races since the playoff started. "We had a regular season and now we have a playoff and right now we haven't had a bad finish."

While Busch led a race-high 120 laps, leading contenders Jeff Gordon struggled and Dale Earnhardt Jr. was never a factor, allowing Busch to build his lead to 96 points over Gordon and 125 over Earnhardt.  More