“I have to thank this race team for having the strength and mental attitude and everything that they do to bounce back last week, to show up and put a butt-kickin' on everybody today,” Johnson said.

"I think last weekend, qualifying 12th — even though that is a good qualifying spot — put us in harm's way. I was maybe a little cautious in qualifying on Friday. So we need to show up down there (Homestead-Miami Speedway) and treat it like any other race. The further forward we start, the better we are going to be track position-wise. (The) better pit stall selection we are going to have so until we get in the race and see what we really have, we're going to treat it like any other race and just go as fast as we can."

Late in the running Denny Hamlin appeared to be pulling Johnson in a bit but once he worked his No. 48 Chevy through lap traffic, Johnson regrouped and stretched out a lengthy lead. He ended the race over a second ahead of second-place finisher Jeff Burton and Hamlin, who dropped to third.

The runner-up effort gave Burton’s Richard Childress Racing team, which has struggled much of the season, its third consecutive top-10 showing.

“I'm very optimistic,” Burton said of the recent performance. “What we can't do is sit tight. We can't look at what we're doing now and say we're good enough. We didn't win the race today. We're certainly making strides. We've got to improve this winter.  If we don't, we won't be good enough.”

The win was Johnson’s fourth of the nine Chase races run so far. It was also his fourth race win at Phoenix, spanning the last five events.

Johnson and the Chad Knaus-led No. 48 Lowe’s team enter the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway next Sunday with a 108-point lead over Hendrick Motorsports teammate Mark Martin. Martin, who won the race at Phoenix in April, put on a valiant fight on Sunday, but had nothing for his stablemate, and finished fourth.  

"We had a great run,” Martin stated. “The guys did a fabulous job and we had a really good racecar. The car was awesome on the long runs. I really thought with that last long green flag that we were going to get up there and make it a four-car race but our car got tight and kind of fizzled out.

“I'm pretty proud of what we've done this season. That's really all I've got to say about it. I'm proud of what we've accomplished.”

Martin Truex Jr., in fifth, recorded the best finish of his season. Kurt Busch was sixth, followed by Clint Bowyer, Juan Pablo Montoya, Jeff Gordon and David Reutimann.

The race was much of the same when it comes to Chase competition with Johnson setting the pace. Kurt Busch showcased a strong car early but the handling on his Dodge waned in the closing laps.

The 312-lap event was relatively clean, as only four caution flags slowing the pace. Two of the yellows were brought out by debris while the other two were for multi-car crashes on double-file restarts.

On lap 172, Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s season of struggles continued when he spun the tires on a restart and got sideways, igniting a chain reaction through in the frontstretch. With nowhere to go to take evasive action, the cars of Tony Stewart, Brian Vickers, Joey Logano and Matt Kenseth were among those collected.