The Associated Press

LONG POND, Pa. - Jimmie Johnson was the picture of cool after his trip to Victory Lane, mugging for cameras, swigging champagne and using a little math to figure out how close he was to the points lead.

He hardly looked like a driver who almost had a win pulled out from under him.

Johnson used a near-flawless performance to overcome a NASCAR mistake and won another caution-filled race Sunday at Pocono Raceway.

"We were just fast all the way through," Johnson said. "The pit stops were fast, the race car was fast, the driver was fast."

Johnson controlled most of the Pocono 500 for his second win in three weeks, third this year and ninth of his career. He has led 820 miles in the last three races and has two more seconds in his last five.

At Pocono, he was almost a victim of NASCAR's ever-changing, and often confusing, rules.

The pit road official opened the service lane one lap too early during a late caution period. As a result, Johnson, the leader, was unable to pit while most of the cars behind him did. He had to pit later and it cost him the front spot on the restart.

Instead of penalizing the violators, NASCAR let the field stand. Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus said they never received an explanation from NASCAR.

Johnson, though, raced his way to the front, then built on his lead on several late restarts on the 2 1/2-mile track. He led 126 of the 200 laps and took the lead for good on lap 174.

Still, the pit road mix-up bothered Johnson.

"Fortunately, we didn't lose the race over it, but I was very upset at the time that things weren't corrected to give us the track position back," Johnson said.

Jeremy Mayfield, who has two of his three career victories at Pocono, finished second. He pushed Johnson hard inside and was about a car-length behind when another yellow flag came out with three laps left. Mayfield said the cautions had little affect on the finish.

"The best car won the race today," he said. "It would be different if somebody who hadn't been running up front all day won."

Bobby Labonte, who won the 1999 Pocono 500 and the 1999 and 2001 Pennsylvania 500, was third.

After only three cautions in the first 100 laps, there were eight in the last 100. The most notable came when Rusty Wallace hit Michael Waltrip and sent him into the wall.

The race ended under caution because Dale Jarrett and Jeff Burton blew engines.

BUSCH SERIES: Jason Leffler won the first NASCAR Busch Series race of his career early Sunday morning in a wild ending to the Federated Auto Parts 300 following a nearly three-hour rain delay at Nashville Superspeedway.

Leffler won under a caution caused when Kyle Busch ran out of gas with four laps to go.

That allowed Leffler to inherit the lead, and he was able to nurse his Chevrolet through the final laps under caution for his first victory in his 56th start.

Crew chief Bootie Barker advised Leffler to save his gas because Busch wouldn't be able to make it to the end.

Busch wound up 17th, failing to finish in the top 10 for the first time in 11 races and lost the points lead to Martin Truex Jr. Polesitter Truex finished second in his Chevy and leads Busch by 45 points. Third was Clint Bowyer, followed by Mike Bliss and Ron Hornaday, giving Chevy a top-five sweep.

FORMULA ONE: Michael Schumacher is just as happy to outsmart the field as he is to dominate it.

He and his Ferrari team won the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal on Sunday for his seventh victory in eight races, using a two pit-stop strategy to perfection to overcome a season-worst sixth-place start.

The German, who holds just about every major record in the globe-trotting Formula One series, also picked up his third straight victory and fourth in five years on Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. His seven victories in Montreal is a Formula One record for wins at one track.