Richmond, Va. ? Jimmie Johnson’s celebration seemed a bit subdued. Maybe all these trips to Victory Lane are becoming routine for the Hendrick Motorsports crew.

Johnson gave Hendrick its seventh win in the past eight Nextel Cup races by leading teammate Kyle Busch to a 1-2 finish Sunday at Richmond International Raceway. It was the third consecutive victory for Hendrick, which remained undefeated in the four races NASCAR has used its new Car of Tomorrow.

But there was no gloating for a team all too aware how quickly the competition can catch up.

“Our team is in full stride, but this is a very circular sport,” said Chad Knaus, the winning crew chief. “You get your time at the top and you fall to some degree. What you’ve got to do is make sure when you are taking your time at the top, you don’t get too full of yourself that when it’s your turn to fall, it doesn’t break you apart.”

Johnson, who was second to teammate Jeff Gordon last week at Talladega, finally broke through on one of the worst tracks on his resume. The .75-mile oval had given Johnson fits through his career, and he came in with just one top-10 finish in 15 previous visits.

In this year of Hendrick Motorsports, everything has gone right, and Johnson finally conquered the track for his series-leading fourth victory of the season.

“It’s cyclical,” the defending Nextel Cup champion said. “You enjoy it while you’ve got it, but we know that somebody is going to figure something out. We’ll just hope that the valley’s aren’t that low and the valley isn’t in the final 10.”

Johnson used the victory to pull into second place in the standings, where he now trails Gordon by 211 points. But based on NASCAR’s new seeding system for the Chase for the championship, Johnson would start the final 10 races with a 40-point bonus on the competition.

And, five of the 10 Chase races will use the COT.

It’s left the competition admittedly frustrated.

“You can argue that Hendrick has all the best drivers,” Denny Hamlin said. “It’s tough to beat them when they’ve got four very, very good teams. We’ve got three good teams, but when you’ve got four like they have – all competitive and all running up front every week, the information that they exchange is going to be better.”

Only Casey Mears, the fourth driver in the Hendrick stable, is struggling. He was wrecked early and finished 18th.

Busch said the entire organization is the class of the NASCAR right now.

“We’ve got great race teams, and I’d say probably four of the best 10 or 12 drivers out there,” he said. “It’s hard to beat the best drivers with the best equipment and the best teams. You just have everything all pieced together correctly.”

It looked as if Hendrick would finish 1-2-3 for the final 100 laps of the race, as Johnson, Busch and pole-sitter Gordon battled for the lead. But Gordon faded over the final 15 laps and gave up third place to Hamlin.

Gordon, who won the past two weeks, settled for fourth as Chevrolets took the top four spots in the race that began briefly Saturday night with 12 laps run under caution before it was halted because of rain. It started fresh on Sunday.

Only Kevin Harvick had a car that could challenge the Hendrick crew, and the Daytona 500 winner led 106 laps midway through the race. He was out front when the sixth caution of the race sent the field into the pits, but as Harvick pulled out, he clipped rookie David Ragan, who was heading into his stall.

It caused considerable damage to the front of Harvick’s car and forced him to stop for repairs. He was in 17th, with heavy black tape around the nose of his Chevrolet, when the race resumed and never challenged again. He rallied to finish seventh.