Coca-Cola 600 captured by Johnson on final turn

Jimme Johnson slid past Bobby Labonte in the final turn to win the Coca-Cola 600 for the third consecutive year Sunday night in Concord, N.C. This one was nowhere near as easy as his previous wins.

Unlike his past two dominating victories, Johnson had to come from fourth place to chase down Labonte after a restart with five laps to go. Labonte did his best to hold off Johnson, who needed just three laps around Lowe's Motor Speedway to pull onto the leader's bumper.

Johnson got there on the final lap and edged past coming out of the final turn to grab his second victory of the season.

Labonte, off to a horrid start this season, kicked his car in disgust as he climbed out of it.

Johnson, meanwhile, had a bottle thrown at his car during his victory lap and was slightly booed when he got out of it. He didn't seem to notice as he celebrated with his Hendrick Motorsports crew.

"Three 600s, that's just amazing," said Johnson, the Nextel Cup points leader.

Carl Edwards was third, followed by Jeremy Mayfield and pole-sitter Ryan Newman. Greg Biffle was sixth, Martin Truex Jr. was seventh and Dale Jarrett, Ken Schrader and Rusty Wallace rounded out the top 10.

EUROPEAN GP: At Nuerburgring, Germany, Fernando Alonso recovered from a first-corner bump Sunday and then was handed a gift — a spectacular tire blowout by Kimi Raikkonen on the last lap in a riveting finish to the European Grand Prix.

It was the fourth victory of the season for Alonso, the Formula One leader, and fifth of his career in a Renault.

Raikkonen's tire began to bend with two laps left in a race Raikkonen led from the first curve. But as he gunned across the line to start the last lap, the tire flew into the air and bounced on his hood while Raikkonen spun and hit a retaining wall.

"We were very lucky today, but we were very strong also," Alonso said.

Nick Heidfeld, on the pole, was 16.5 seconds behind in a Williams-BMW, his second straight runner-up finish. Rubens Barrichello was in third in a Ferrari, 18.5 seconds back, his first top-three result since the season opener.

Michael Schumacher was fifth, his second-best finish this season. Last year, Schumacher led Ferrari to a 1-2 finish. The seven-time world champion has won the European GP at Nuerburgring four times and once when it was run at Jerez, Spain, in 1994.