Qualifying
Jimmie Johnson put his Hendrick Motorsports Chevy on the pole over Jamie McMurray's Roush Racing Ford. Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman made up row number two. Kasey Kahne rounded out the top five in qualifying in his Evernham Dodge.
Drop The Green Flag
Jimmie Johnson made the most of his pole position and took the early lead. They only made it to lap number two before the first caution few for a multi-car wreck. Clint Bowyer, Travis Kvapil, Dale Earnhardt Jr, Robby Gordon, Kyle Petty, Chad Chaffin, Mark Martin and a bunch more all got caught up together in a chain reaction wreck.
When the green returned Jimmie Johnson maintained the lead but Jamie McMurray was pushing him hard. But just a handful of laps later Travis Kvapil lost control by himself to bring out the second yellow. It was a slow start to the race but then they finally got in line and clicked off some laps.
Jamie McMurray took over the top spot on lap 28 and Tony Stewart followed him through to second. Stewart got past McMurray on lap 34. That's how they ran through the early part of the race. Stewart, McMurray, Johnson, Kasey Kahne and Jeff Gordon held down the top five spots as the field settled down from the early cautions and got down to the business of surviving 500 laps on the tough short-track in Martinsville.
Storylines
Jeff Gordon had a flat tire on lap 89. This is a big story as Jeff Gordon had swept both Martinsville races in 2002 and again in 2005. Gordon was one of the big favorites coming into today's race. It seems that he caught a break and the yellow flag saved him from going a lap down. However, Gordon was at the end of the line when they restarted and was a long way from the lead. Jeff Gordon restarted in 24th with about 400 laps to go.
It was a good day for Chevrolet in the manufacturers points battle. Chevy swept the top five. The top Ford was Elliott Sadler in sixth and the best finishing Dodge was Scott Riggs' tenth place effort.
Chasing The Checkers
Jimmie Johnson had the lead with 50 laps to go over Tony Stewart. Stewart and Johnson. Those two beat the heck out of each other for a few laps and put on a great short-track racing show as Stewart made the pass with 30 laps to go.
With fifteen laps to go Joe Nemechek brought out the caution and erased Tony Stewart's lead over Jeff Gordon. Points leader Matt Kenseth lost his brakes on the ensuing restart and locked up the rear tires going into turn one. Matt hit the wall a ton. This ended his day and brought out a red flag while track crews cleaned up the mess.
The final restart came with three laps to go so the cars restarted in a single file line with all of the lead lap cars up front. This was a short-track shootout for the win in Martinsville as Tony Stewart took the final green flag with Jeff Gordon hot on his heels. Gordon's teammates Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch were running third and fourth.
Jeff Gordon slipped on the restart and that's all the break that Tony Stewart needed to set sail and take the win.
Top Ten
- Tony Stewart
- Jeff Gordon
- Jimmie Johnson
- Dale Earnhardt Jr.
- Kyle Busch
- Elliott Sadler
- Kevin Harvick
- Brian Vickers
- Jamie McMurray
- Scott Riggs
The Points
Matt Kenseth's late race wreck dropped him out of the points lead. Coming into the race Kasey Kahne was in second but he also had trouble and dropped to fourth in the points.
Jimmie Johnson regained the overall lead with another strong run and Mark Martin moved up a couple spots in the points to take over second.
Dale Jarrett dropped out of the top ten and was replaced by Elliott Sadler.
The top ten in points are now:
- Jimmie Johnson -0
- Mark Martin -59
- Matt Kenseth -60
- Kasey Kahne -101
- Kyle Busch -101
- Dale Earnhardt Jr. -109
- Jeff Gordon -119
- Tony Stewart -142
- Elliott Sadler -198
- Casey Mears -209
Next Week
We are done with short-tracking for a while as next week the series moves to Texas Motor Speedway. This 1.5 mile quad-oval near Fort Worth Texas has hosted NASCAR racing since 1997 when its first NEXTEL Cup race started with a huge wreck in turn 1. Since then the track has seem some great racing and very high speeds. The track record in Texas stands at over 194MPH.
