Johnson wins at Martinsville

Johnson led the last 113 laps of the race and fended off a massive attack from Gordon in the closing stages - the two Hendrick Chevrolets coming out of the last corner of the race side-by-side rubbing fenders against each other.

Fresher tyres were the key to Gordon's advantage in the last part of the race. Johnson did the last 139 laps on the same set of tyres, running out of pit sequence just before the race was red-flagged for nearly a half hour due to rain with 143 laps remaining to the finish.

With 50 laps to go Gordon caught Johnson and battled him cleanly without making any contact, but after the last restart with 17 to go, he bumped the rear of his teammate's car several times while Johnson tried to give him just enough space to avoid an accident.

"I always wanted to race Jeff here at Martinsville and to win a race and beat him here means the world to me," Johnson said after claiming his third win of the season, also his third at Martinsville.

"Jeff definitely was a little faster through the centre of the turn but we've got the same cars, so in braking zones and other areas on the track our cars were pretty equal.

"I wanted to be on the bottom and just had to defend it, stay down there. He tried to get me off from the bottom but with the bumpers on these cars it's so forgiving. You can really hit hard without doing any damage."

Gordon, a seven-time winner at Martinsville, did everything in his power short of wrecking Johnson to take the win away.

"It was a heck of a race. Jimmie did exactly what he needed to do, make his car really, really wide. It was a great race and I basically had to wreck him to win it and I'm not going to wreck my teammate for a win," Gordon said.

"I tried to move him several times, but he's tough here and ran his line the way he needed to do. We had a much faster race car but the fastest car doesn't always win and they played a good pit strategy.

"I really thought we should've won this one and I'm pretty disappointed that we didn't."

It seemed like there were two different races at Martinsville, both being split by the rain interruption on lap 358. The first part saw early dominance by pole-sitter Denny Hamlin, who had a good battle for the lead with Gordon in the early laps.

Tony Stewart, one of the favourites to take victory, led laps in the first part of the race as well although it was Dale Earnhardt Jr who looked like the man to beat as the race approached its second half.

Earnhardt led the race twice for a total of 137 laps to claim an extra five points. He was in the lead when the race was red-flagged but his strategy didn't pay off in the end as he got a bit held up by the omnipresent traffic on the 0.5-mile oval. He eventually finished fifth.

Third was Hamlin, who recovered from a delayed pit stop that dropped him from the lead down to tenth during the sixth of 13 cautions.

Bristol race-winner Kyle Busch was one of the fastest cars in the last few laps, initially running the same strategy as Johnson but pitting under caution with 76 to go.

The second Car of Tomorrow race saw no major dramas with the new cars, although Kevin Harvick, who spent the first 288 laps running in the top-five, was hit by fuel pressure problems and a burning padding on the right-hand-side of his Chevrolet.

Juan Pablo Montoya had a respectable run in his first trip to Martinsville, running in the top-ten just before the rain interruption. He had an incident with Tony Raines on lap 377 - spinning Raines into the wall while trying to get back a position he had lost a lap before.

"It's okay. Our car there at the end after the rain, it wasn't the same," Montoya said after finishing 16th and on the lead lap.

"It was a little loose off the corners so we lost a little drive. Before that, it was pretty good. I just couldn't get the power down. It's okay. We got some points."

For the Toyota drivers it was yet another difficult race. All five Camrys that took the start hit some kind of trouble. The best-placed Toyota was Dale Jarrett who finished 28th and four laps down.

The Nextel Cup standings continue to be led by Gordon, who now has a gap of 28 points over Jeff Burton and 60 over Johnson.

Pos  Driver              Make       Laps
 1.  Jimmie Johnson      Chevrolet  500
 2.  Jeff Gordon         Chevrolet  500
 3.  Denny Hamlin        Chevrolet  500
 4.  Kyle Busch          Chevrolet  500
 5.  Dale Earnhardt Jr.  Chevrolet  500
 6.  Jeff Burton         Chevrolet  500
 7.  Tony Stewart        Chevrolet  500
 8.  Scott Riggs         Dodge      500
 9.  Jamie McMurray      Ford       500
10.  Matt Kenseth        Ford       500
11.  Clint Bowyer        Chevrolet  500
12.  Kurt Busch          Dodge      500
13.  Ricky Rudd          Ford       500
14.  Ryan Newman         Dodge      500
15.  David Ragan         Ford       500
16.  Juan Montoya        Dodge      500
17.  Carl Edwards        Ford       500
18.  Reed Sorenson       Dodge      500
19.  Ken Schrader        Ford       500
20.  Tony Raines         Chevrolet  500
21.  Sterling Marlin     Chevrolet  500
22.  Kyle Petty          Dodge      499
23.  J.J. Yeley          Chevrolet  499
24.  Elliott Sadler      Dodge      498
25.  Kasey Kahne         Dodge      498
26.  Regan Smith         Chevrolet  498
27.  Joe Nemechek        Chevrolet  497
28.  Dale Jarrett        Toyota     496
29.  Martin Truex Jr.    Chevrolet  496
30.  Mike Bliss          Dodge      493
31.  Johnny Sauter       Chevrolet  493
32.  Greg Biffle         Ford       492
33.  David Reutimann     Toyota     491
34.  Robby Gordon        Ford       490
35.  David Stremme       Dodge      490
36.  Jeff Green          Chevrolet  487
37.  Dave Blaney         Toyota     485
38.  A.J. Allmendinger   Toyota     483
39.  David Gilliland     Ford       469
40.  Jeremy Mayfield     Toyota     451
41.  Kevin Harvick       Chevrolet  445
42.  Casey Mears         Chevrolet  371
43.  Bobby Labonte       Dodge      265