CONCORD, N.C. -- On a Saturday night when everyone chasing Jimmie Johnson was desperately hoping to gain ground on the leader in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, there was only one winner in the NASCAR Banking 500 at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

That was Johnson.

The rest of the Chasers were losers -- and the majority of them lost big.

Only two were able to minimize the damage of yet another Johnson victory, but of those two -- third-place finisher Kasey Kahne and fourth-place finisher Jeff Gordon -- only Gordon is hanging onto the seemingly slim hope of catching Johnson with five races left in the Chase.

Gordon moved up two spots in the standings to third, but went from 105 points out of the lead to 135. Kahne already was out of the championship hunt when the night began, and fell from 306 to 331 points off Johnson's pace despite moving up from 11th to ninth in the points.

“

The driver made a mistake last week and it cost us, and this week it's just a parts failure.

”

DENNY HAMLIN

Juan Montoya arguably lost the most, even though mathematically there were others who did even worse. He entered the night third in points and carrying plenty of momentum of his own. But after starting 18th and moving rather swiftly up to fourth, Montoya's night was forever altered on a restart on Lap 126 when he bumped into Clint Bowyer in front of him and in turn took a bigger hit from Mark Martin in the rear of his car.

Neither Montoya's car nor Martin's was ever the same after that. With his right-rear quarterpanel crumpled, Montoya could barely keep the car under him and dropped backward like a rock off a high cliff. He needed a caution to get his car fixed, but didn't get one until he spun himself out -- and eventually finished the race in 35th, four laps down.

Martin struggled to stay on the lead lap and was able to do so, but the best that salvaged him was 17th. That enabled him to remain in second in the standings behind Johnson, but he fell to 90 points behind after coming into the race down only 12. Montoya dropped from third to sixth and is now trails Johnson by 195 points.

But Montoya and Martin were not alone in their misery amongst the Chasers. On a night when 11 other drivers were clinging to the hope that they might somehow gain ground on Johnson, all lost to varying degrees.

Statistically, the biggest Chase loser on the night turned out to be Denny Hamlin, who lost the engine on his No. 11 Toyota on Lap 192 and was done for the night after earlier leading four times for a total of 54 laps. He finished 42nd.

"It's just a tough night. ... We've just had a couple of rough weeks," said Hamlin, who one week earlier wrecked himself out of the race at Auto Club Speedway in California. "The driver made a mistake last week and it cost us, and this week it's just a parts failure."

Hamlin said it was especially disappointing because his car ran so well early in Saturday night's race at LMS.

"It's the best I've ever run at this race track," Hamlin said. "I had a shot to win it, I felt like. I was being so patient, not trying to push it and trying not to show everything I had until the very end."

Except once the engine went sour, he wasn't around for the end -- or even much of the middle. Instead, it signaled the end to any slim championship hopes he had remaining.

Hamlin began the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup seeded fourth and brimming with confidence after winning the final non-Chase race at Richmond. He moved to third in points after finishing second in the first Chase race at New Hampshire, but dropped to sixth after finishing 22nd at Dover and further to ninth after wrecking at California.

Now he's 11th, a hopeless 372 points behind leader Johnson, the three-time defending champion who continues to pull away from the rest of the Chase field.

"We're definitely done as far as the championship is concerned," Hamlin said. "I may not even make the top 10 in points now. We were looking for maybe a championship two weeks ago, and that's what's bad about this points system.

"It's 10 weeks only -- and the first (26 races) don't even matter anymore. You just have to get it together in those last 10. ... We're just going to keep fighting to stay in that top 10 (in points). That's important to us right now. The way that we're running, we belong up top. A couple mistakes two weeks in a row -- one by the driver and one by a mechanical issue, it just takes you right out of it."

Another driver who knows that all too well is Carl Edwards, whose Saturday night ended when the engine in his No. 99 Ford blew with 30 laps remaining and him running three laps off the lead. He ended up finishing 39th as a result and fell from eighth in points to 10th, 341 behind Johnson.

"That was a mercy killing right there," Edwards said shortly after climbing from his smoking car.

He might as well have been talking about what Johnson had just done to the entire Chase field.