NEWTON, Iowa (AP) Ricky Stenhouse Jr. didn't need a fortuitous push from a teammate to win at Iowa Speedway this time around.

Stenhouse's No. 6 car was strong enough to keep the drama and the rest of the field out of reach.

He led 209 of 250 laps and won the NASCAR Nationwide race at the Iowa Speedway on Sunday, his third straight win on Iowa's short oval.

Stenhouse, who won both races in Iowa in 2011 and took first last August after blowing an engine and being pushed across by Carl Edwards, picked up his third victory of the season. He also extended his lead in the points chase to 28 over Elliott Sadler, who was second.

''It feels good to win three in a row, and it was a lot of fun leading that many laps,'' Stenhouse said.

Michael McDowell tied his career best by finishing third, followed by rookie Austin Dillon and Kurt Busch. Danica Patrick failed to finish for the second time this season and Travis Pastrana finished 26th in his third career Nationwide race because of an electrical issue.

For Stenhouse, Sunday's race was a lot less exciting but a lot more efficient than his last trip to Iowa.

Stenhouse's 209 laps led tied the track record set by Kyle Busch in 2010. He also became the first Nationwide driver to win three in a row at the same track since Kyle Busch won three at Texas in 2009-10.

''This is the way you want to win. You want to go out here and dominate,'' Stenhouse said. ''We want to go out there and lead laps, stay up front and get the job done.''

The Sprint Cup event in Charlotte on Saturday kept all Cup regulars except for Kurt Busch out of the field, giving the Nationwide series a rare Sunday in the spotlight.

Busch still showcased his skills as a driver though, briefly taking the lead after starting in the back and saving a top-five finish after being bumped by McDowell on the last lap.

''Stenhouse man, he did a good job (Sunday). The kid is getting really good,'' Busch said. ''It's great to sniff the lead, be close to it and just missing a couple little components.''

Sadler started on the pole, but Sam Hornish Jr. quickly took the lead away and held it for 30 laps until Stenhouse took control. Though Cole Whitt, Justin Allgaier and Busch each took turns with the front position, none of them could hold off the charging Stenhouse for more than a few laps.

Sadler bounced back nicely from his late wreck in Darlington last week by starting first and finishing second, but he was still frustrated he couldn't beat Stenhouse.

''We thought we had a car to win the race when the race started. But I'm proud of my guys for rebounding the way they did after last week. To come back and finish second, a good job on their part,'' Sadler said.

Patrick's promising weekend ended in a wall.

Patrick started ninth, just her fifth top-10 start in 35 career Nationwide races. But Patrick was already in 16th place when she drifted high into a turn and slammed into the wall 114 laps into the 250-lap event.

The No. 7 car suffered damage on its right side that was too extensive for Patrick to continue. Patrick said she was encouraged by the progress she and her team made this weekend, even though it ended poorly.

''I'm bummed out because we were on a good roll and we were having the best short track weekend we've had yet,'' Patrick said. ''These are the things that happen. You can't control it. You've got 34 weekends and they're not all going to go perfect.''

Darrell Wallace Jr., held his ground in his first career start in the Nationwide series, finishing ninth after starting eighth.

Wallace, who drives for Joe Gibbs Racing, finished last in the K&N Pro Series event on Saturday night after hitting the wall just 26 laps in. But that was an aberration for the 18-year-old Wallace, who has won six times in that series.

''He's somebody with the most promising talent who is an African-American to come through our diversity program. He has been dominant at the K&N. He's winning,'' NASCAR chairman Brian France said about Wallace while in Charlotte on Saturday night. ''That's a breakthrough if that materializes. If not him, there's going to be somebody who is going to walk in the door and be a star, and it's going to be very good for us.''

But neither Wallace nor Patrick nor anybody else could steal the spotlight from Stenhouse.

Though McDowell thought that Sadler, Kurt Busch and himself all had stronger cars than the No. 6 at the end, the top spot was already a foregone conclusion by then.

''Nah, they didn't have a faster race car,'' Stenhouse said. ''If they had faster race cars, I feel like they should have been there out in front of us. But our race car was solid.''

CONCORD, N.C. (AP) It didn't take teams very long to figure out their best shot at winning the All-Star race would be in the first 20 laps.

What few predicted, though, was that the new format would encourage drivers to take it easy for portions of Saturday night's $1 million race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Now fans are upset winner Jimmie Johnson essentially sandbagged for 60 or so laps before turning it up for a final charge to his third All-Star race victory.

''Everybody knew if you could win that first segment, you could control the night,'' said Johnson, who indeed won the first of four 20-lap segments.

Under the format for this year's race, the winners of each of the first four 20-lap segments lined up 1-through-4 for the mandatory trip down pit road. Once there, it was a race to simply be the first drivers to get back on the track for the final 10-lap sprint to the finish.

So Johnson claimed the first segment, then faded to the back of field for next three segments. Matt Kenseth joined him at the rear after winning the second segment, and although Brad Keselowski was reluctant to follow the same strategy, he also went to the back when his team insisted it was the best strategy after the third segment.

''Obviously there was a debate whether or not to run hard or conserve your stuff,'' Keselowski said. ''I hate conserving race cars. They're meant to run hard. I just wanted to make sure that everybody on my team was on the same plan, and they were. So I've got to do what they tell me.''

It wasn't all that popular for race fans, who seemed nonplussed by the three-wide racing through the pack that accentuated several of the opening segments. Instead, many seemed annoyed that Johnson, Kenseth and Keselowski had no incentive to race once they won their segments.

Johnson, who claimed ''when the rules came down, every crew chief in the garage area realized the importance of that first segment,'' was reluctant to criticize the latest All-Star race format. It was the eighth change to the format since the race was created in 1985.

''That's going to be tough for me to knock the system after how our night went because it just worked out exactly how we'd hoped,'' he said.

But NASCAR has long touted its All-Star event as the only one in professional sports where the participants actually try hard, and Saturday night managed to discredit that theory.

It was clearly difficult for runner-up Keselowski, who made a solid attempt at sugarcoating the strategy of just riding around at the back of the field. He didn't seem all that believable, though, following his second-place finish.

''I'll race whatever rules you have,'' he said. ''I'll race as hard as it takes to win. That was what it took to win. So, you know, I can't say I feel great about it. Happy that we were good enough to win one of the segments.''

There are also new questions about the length of the final segment.

The idea of making it just 10 laps was obviously to create a frantic, all-out, sprint to the $1 million prize. But Carl Edwards proved last year that if a driver can get a good start, he can build enough of a lead that can't be overcome in 10 laps.

After Johnson won the race down pit road on Saturday night, he, too, got a good restart and checked out from the rest of the field. Nobody had a chance to catch him in such a short sprint, but Keselowski said Johnson was so good, he wouldn't have been able to catch him in 100 laps.

Kenseth, who restarted second and finished third, thought 10 laps gave Johnson a decided advantage.

''You got somebody as fast as him out front, there was no way I was going to have a shot in 10 laps,'' Kenseth said. ''Ten laps is kind of short, but yet the fastest car was out front. It was hard to beat that.''

Regardless of the format, the consensus among drivers seemed to be that the best car won the race. And for Johnson, it put him alongside the late Dale Earnhardt and teammate Jeff Gordon as the only drivers to win three All-Star races.

Johnson's win came a week after he gave team owner Rick Hendrick his 200th Cup victory with a win at Darlington. With five Sprint Cup championships on his resume, this latest All-Star win was yet another feat in Johnson's bid to rewrite the record books.

''I've got a lot of years left ahead of myself,'' he said. ''I want to leave my mark in this sport when I hang up my helmet. We're doing a great job of that.''

7:50 a.m. ET-- The top-four drivers in qualifying -- Elliott Sadler, Sam Hornish Jr., Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Michael McDowell -- were separated by less than 2/10ths of a second. Justin Allgaier took fifth, while Austin Dillon, Brian Scott, Darrell Wallace Jr., Danica Patrick and Parker Kligerman round out the top 10.

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CONCORD, N.C. (AP) It's not often a race car driver intentionally cruises slowly at the back of the field.

Jimmie Johnson did it for roughly 60 laps Saturday night, and it earned him a cool $1 million payday.

Johnson used a calculated strategy - he drove hard for the first and last segments, and coasted for the three in between - to join Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon as the only three-time winners of NASCAR's All-Star race.

The five-time champion won the first 20-lap segment of the Sprint All-Star race, then deliberately faded to the back for the next three 20-lap segments at Charlotte Motor Speedway. His plan was to keep the No. 48 Chevrolet out of trouble, then make his play for the win in the fifth and final segment.

''We did a strategy that we thought was best for our team,'' he said.

It certainly was, even if it was the antithesis of what race car drivers do for a living.

But it worked for this year's new format, which guaranteed the winners of the first four segments would be the first four drivers down pit road for a mandatory stop before the 10-lap sprint to the finish. Johnson's win in the first segment meant he was guaranteed to be the first driver down pit road, and he had the first stall - the reward for his Hendrick Motorsports team winning Thursday night's Pit Crew Competition.

His race, after winning that first segment, was simply to beat everyone else off pit road. Johnson raced Matt Kenseth down the lane, and edged him across the line.

He then needed a clean and quick restart, which he executed to perfection, to pull away for the win. This win comes a week after his Darlington Raceway victory gave Hendrick Motorsports its 200th Cup win.

''Man, I don't want this week to end,'' Johnson said.

He celebrated by picking up team owner Rick Hendrick, who climbed halfway through the window of the Chevrolet for Johnson's celebratory lap. It was Hendrick's seventh All-Star race win.

''He said come pick me up, and once I got to him, he didn't want the ride,'' Johnson said. ''I'm like, 'No, no, I came to get you, Get on the car.' It was great to take him around.''

It didn't look very comfortable - or safe.

''That was the dumbest thing I've ever done in racing,'' Hendrick said. ''I thought I was going to be a busted watermelon.''

Brad Keselowski, winner of the third segment, had no chance to catch Johnson over the closing 10 laps. The final segment was the shortest by 10 laps, but Keselowski didn't think it mattered.

''I don't think it was going to make a difference if it was a hundred laps at the end; Jimmie was just that fast,'' Keselowski said. ''You can't really steal any of his thunder on that. I was doing all I could to get by, but wasn't meant to be.''

But Keselowski, who won the third segment, wasn't all that disappointed.

''It's all about the restart,'' Keselowski said. ''The high line on the restart just wouldn't go. I don't know if I would have been able to do anything, but I would have liked another shot. We got beat by a five-time champ and two-time All-Star winner, so I think we're doing pretty good. We didn't have enough to pull it off.''

Kenseth, winner of the second segment, finished third. He had some tense moments after teammates Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle had engine failures - Biffle's exploded into a giant fireball - and initially wasn't all that comfortable following Johnson's lead of running around the back until the final 10 laps.

''I watched what the 48 did. They won the first one, so they didn't race until the last 10,'' Kenseth said. ''They seem to know what they're doing, pretty smart. We watched that, kind of hung back. There wasn't any reward for racing up through there. You knew you were coming on pit road second.''

And after losing the race off pit road to Johnson, and the restart, too, Kenseth knew he couldn't catch the winner. It was Kenseth's fifth top-five finish in 12 All-Star races.

''For me, you got somebody as fast as him out front, there was no way I was going to have a shot in 10 laps,'' Kenseth said. ''Ten laps is kind of short, but yet the fastest car was out front. It was hard to beat that.''

Kyle Busch finished fourth and was followed by Dale Earnhardt Jr., who won the fourth segment and advanced into the All-Star race by winning the qualifying race earlier Saturday night. Busch, the pole-sitter, wasn't surprised by the finishing order.

''It was exactly like everybody thought it would be; Anybody who wins the first segment will win the race,'' Busch said.