Gordon wins at Darlington

Gordon's car looked like it was not going to last the distance, but despite steaming during the last two caution periods, a late decision by his crew chief Steve Letarte to stay on the track while rivals pitted for tyres, gave him the edge to capture his third win of the season.

"With over 100 laps to go I noticed the water temp went up and it wasn't coming back down," Gordon said after capturing the fifth consecutive Car of Tomorrow race victory for Hendrick Motorsports.

"I thought there was no way we were going to make it. I've never seen gages look like that and the engine make it to the end."

With 22 laps to go, a caution came out and Jimmie Johnson pitted from the lead to get four new tyres for the final sprint of the race. Gordon, who was running second at that point, inherited the lead, gambling on running the last part of the race on used rubber.

"If you can get clean air then it's worth gambling," Gordon added. "I didn't want to come down pit road and stop just because I thought the engine was going to blow up. I thought keeping air moving was better. I could not believe that Jimmie was going to come in."

It looked good for Gordon when the race was restarted with 19 laps to go until a later caution came out with 17 laps remaining, evaporating the gap from his rivals and raising once again the water temperature on his Chevrolet Impala SS.

However, it was Ryan Newman, who ran second behind Gordon, who eased the pressure up in the last 12 laps of racing, making life difficult for the charging No. 48 car of Johnson, who struggled to quickly overtake the No. 12 Penske Dodge, which was also on used rubber.

"Obviously Newman put up quite a fight with my teammate Jimmie," the Nextel Cup points leader admitted. "I think he had the car to beat, he was coming and I didn't know if I was going to be able to hold him off there at the end."

Eventually Hamlin caught up with Johnson and Newman, overtook them with seven laps to go, but ran out of laps to close the gap to Gordon ahead.

The Joe Gibbs driver led most of the way - 179 laps, to be precise - but hit trouble in the pits again with a delayed stop in one of the later cautions, which dropped him down the order and out of the lead pack.

"I felt like we had the dominant car and we gave another one to Hendrick Motorsports," said a disappointed Hamlin after finishing second. "It's a shame we can't get a win here at Gibbs. Man, it's a shame, our car was really fast."

Johnson finally overtook Newman with six laps to go to finish third and consolidate his status as Gordon's main pursuer in the standings, despite handing him ten additional points for the title-deciding Chase for the Nextel Cup.

"I regret the fact that we came in and pitted, but with a few laps on the tyres you think that's the right thing to do," Johnson said. "We certainly did what we could but just got a little tight with that last set of tyres and we couldn't make the most out of them unfortunately."

Carl Edwards finished fifth behind Newman, achieving his best result of the year so far. He led 33 laps during the race, showing clear signs of improvement in the CoT programme for Roush Fenway Racing.

Tony Stewart finished sixth, recovering from a puncture on his left rear that put him a lap down, while Dale Earnhardt Jr kept his head together to finish a solid eighth after a very tough week off the track.

Many drivers brushed the wall at least once during the 367-lap race, something normal at the "Lady in Black", where cars race so close to the wall. However, few cars crossed the chequered flag without any damage as the Car of Tomorrow proved a handful for most at the 1.3-mile oval.

Juan Pablo Montoya had a tough Cup debut at Darlington, which started with a difficult qualifying on Friday. From 41st on the grid he fell a lap down early on, struggling for grip in the front end of his car for most of the day.

He eventually finished 23rd - two laps down on the winner - and with his car showing bruises from a few brushes with the wall and some of his rivals as well.

The Colombian had a particularly bumpy battle with Red Bull's AJ Allmendinger and also had contact with teammate David Stremme, who crashed into him when leaving his pit-box during a caution period.

"When the car was good we would have been OK," Montoya said. "[Allmendinger] hit us and hit us and hit us again and then I went in there behind him. I let him through and he went in really slow so I went for the bottom.

"As soon as I went for the bottom he checked-up and run into the back of him and damaged all the front. And then [Stremme] in the pits, I don't understand in between teammates you can wreck a car in the pits. It just makes no sense to me."

Nextel Cup teams head now to Dover for a one-day test before focusing on next week's All-Star Challenge at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

Pos  Driver               Make        Laps
 1.  Jeff Gordon          Chevrolet   367
 2.  Denny Hamlin         Chevrolet   367
 3.  Jimmie Johnson       Chevrolet   367
 4.  Ryan Newman          Dodge       367
 5.  Carl Edwards         Ford        367
 6.  Tony Stewart         Chevrolet   367
 7.  Matt Kenseth         Ford        367
 8.  Dale Earnhardt Jr    Chevrolet   367
 9.  Clint Bowyer         Chevrolet   367
10.  Jeff Burton          Chevrolet   367
11.  Martin Truex Jr      Chevrolet   367
12.  Kurt Busch           Dodge       367
13.  Sterling Marlin      Chevrolet   367
14.  Mark Martin          Chevrolet   367
15.  Greg Biffle          Ford        367
16.  Jamie McMurray       Ford        367
17.  Kevin Harvick        Chevrolet   367
18.  JJ Yeley             Chevrolet   367
19.  Bobby Labonte        Dodge       367
20.  Kasey Kahne          Dodge       367
21.  Elliott Sadler       Dodge       367
22.  Jeff Green           Chevrolet   365
23.  Juan Montoya         Dodge       365
24.  Kenny Wallace        Chevrolet   365
25.  Kyle Petty           Dodge       364
26.  Ricky Rudd           Ford        364
27.  David Ragan          Ford        363
28.  Joe Nemechek         Chevrolet   363
29.  Johnny Sauter        Chevrolet   361
30.  David Gilliland      Ford        361
31.  Paul Menard          Chevrolet   358
32.  Dave Blaney          Toyota      355
33.  David Reutimann      Toyota      351
34.  David Stremme        Dodge       349
35.  Casey Mears          Chevrolet   345
36.  AJ Allmendinger      Toyota      344
37.  Kyle Busch           Chevrolet   338
38.  Robby Gordon         Ford        317
39.  Tony Raines          Chevrolet   310
40.  Reed Sorenson        Dodge       310
41.  Ken Schrader         Ford        254
42.  Kevin Lepage         Dodge       127
43.  Brian Vickers        Toyota      123