Jeff Gordon will get the chance to race for his fifth NASCAR Sprint Cup title as one of the final four Chase for the Sprint Cup contenders following his dramatic win in Sunday’s Goody’s 500 at Martinsville Speedway.
Gordon led the final 22 laps and outdueled Jamie McMurray on a final restart with three laps to go to score his first victory of the season and his ninth at Martinsville, earning him an automatic bid into the final championship race at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Nov. 22.
Denny Hamlin, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kyle Busch finished out the rest of the top five.
Gordon’s good fortune came at the expense of Joey Logano, who was the victim of a payback shot from Matt Kenseth, who intentionally ran Logano into the wall as Logano was running away from the field with 45 laps to go.
Logano and Kenseth finished the day in the garage, but not before Kenseth and his car owner Joe Gibbs were called to the NASCAR hauler.
All in all, it was a bad day all around for many of the Chase contenders, but Gordon – who was one of five drivers to make the Chase on points – is the first driver to advance to the championship round.
Gordon, who announced earlier this year that he’ll be retiring at the end of the season, now has a chance to go out on top as a Sprint Cup Champion.
“We’re going to Homestead!” Gordon said after winning the race. “This is the sweetest, most amazing feeling. I am so proud of this team. You want to talk about holding back emotions – right now man, wow, we’re going to Homestead! I can’t believe it.
“I’ll tell you it’s just never over. What a battle. What a team. People don’t give this team enough credit and we seized an opportunity right there. I don’t think this opportunity would present itself the next couple of weeks. We’re going to take advantage of this one and I don’t have to worry about that.”
Gordon’s victory was the 93rd of his career and his first since winning at Dover in September of last year, snapping a 40-race winless streak.
“This is turning into one of these just incredible storybook finishes to this year, to this career. Of all years, I mean, of all years, I cannot believe this. I’m so excited it’s happening in this,” said Gordon. “That’s a huge moment and opportunity. Trust me, we are not going to take that lightly, that opportunity that lies in front of us.”
Kenseth and Logano’s feud had been boiling over for the last three weeks, ever since Logano spun Kenseth at Kansas Speedway while Kenseth was leading, costing him a victory and chance to advance in the Chase.
Last week at Talladega, the two again tangled while coming in to the pits under green, touching off some angry words over Kenseth’s radio. Kenseth was caught up in a crash touched off by Kevin Harvick on the final restart, eliminating him from the Chase while Logano went onto win the race and lock himself into the next round.
As the cars rolled into Martinsville for this weekend’s race, the word “payback” was on everyone’s minds, and they would not be disappointed.
Kenseth himself had managed to run a clean race for much of the day as Logano and his teammate Brad Keselowski battled for the top spot, both combining to lead 350 of the 500 laps.
On a restart with 66 laps to go, Kenseth was running third behind Logano and Keselowski when Keselowski got into the side of Kenseth’s No. 20 Toyota, sending Kenseth spinning to the inside and collecting fellow Chase contender Kurt Busch.
Kenseth was able to make repairs and get back out onto the track, albeit 15 laps down to Logano, who managed to get away clean and continued to lead after the restart.
Just 10 laps later, as Logano lapped Kenseth yet again coming through the frontstetch, Kenseth turned into he left rear of Logano and drove him into the turn one wall, wrecking both their cars in the process.
Logano, who had previously won three straight races and entered Sunday’s race as the No. 1 seed, finished 37th and is now dead last among the eight Chase contenders.
“I think what happened at Kansas is a completely different deal,” said Logano of the incident three weeks ago that precipitated Sunday’s crash. “We were racing for the win and he blocks you a few times and then we raced hard and he blocked me the last time and we spun out. That’s what happened there.
“Here it was just a complete coward move, especially for a championship race car driver and race team. Just a complete coward. I don’t have anything else to say. It’s a chicken-you-know-what move to completely take out the leader when your race is over. We’ll move on.”
Following the incident, NASCAR officially parked Kenseth, who was unable to continue anyway. After the race Kenseth downplayed the incident without admitting intentionally causing the wreck.
“I don’t have any comments for that,” said Kenseth of Logano’s comments. “It’s a really disappointing day. I thought we were going to have a shot at the win there and they were jacking up the restart real bad to let each other in as teammates which is fine and I probably went in there and I got on the other side of Joey (Logano) and I was going to try to race him for the win and Brad (Keselowski) wiped me out for some reason. I’m not really sure why. And then we had so much damage on the right front I should have probably just put it in the garage and just got into (turn) 1 and couldn’t get it to turn and ran Joey over. So, disappointing ending for sure.”
After the race, NASCAR executive vice president Steve O’Donnell said they would review all the footage of the incident and any penalties would be announced on Tuesday.
“We were certainly disappointed with what took place tonight on the racetrack,” said O’Donnell. “I think what was disappointing today was the incident that I think we’re referring to would be a driver that’s not competing for a win, in fact, was many laps down when that happened.
“In our minds, that’s a little bit different than two drivers really going after it coming out of turn four for a win versus what happened tonight.”
Kurt Busch wound up finishing 34th and dropped to seventh in the Chase standings behind Keselowski, while Carl Edwards – who suffered significant front end damage in a crash early in the race – ended the day fifth in points after finishing 14th.
Kyle Busch is now second in the Chase standings, eight points behind Gordon. Truex, Jr., is third, followed by Harvick.
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Martinsville Speedway – Martinsville, VA
Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 – Nov. 01, 2015
1. (5) Jeff Gordon, Chevrolet, 500, $199836.
2. (4) Jamie McMurray, Chevrolet, 500, $158301.
3. (10) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 500, $131335.
4. (22) Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Chevrolet, 500, $117160.
5. (6) Kyle Busch, Toyota, 500, $138391.
6. (2) Martin Truex, Jr., Chevrolet, 500, $121985.
7. (7) Ryan Newman, Chevrolet, 500, $124615.
8. (12) Kevin Harvick, Chevrolet, 500, $146715.
9. (24) Kasey Kahne, Chevrolet, 500, $104790.
10. (13) Tony Stewart, Chevrolet, 500, $119004.
11. (3) A.J. Allmendinger, Chevrolet, 500, $133298.
12. (21) Jimmie Johnson, Chevrolet, 500, $133051.
13. (23) Justin Allgaier, Chevrolet, 500, $113973.
14. (14) Carl Edwards, Toyota, 500, $88865.
15. (26) Paul Menard, Chevrolet, 500, $97065.
16. (8) Aric Almirola, Ford, 500, $125201.
17. (19) Casey Mears, Chevrolet, 500, $110023.
18. (30) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 500, $124176.
19. (9) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, 500, $114423.
20. (31) Cole Whitt, Ford, 500, $98823.
21. (27) Landon Cassill(i), Chevrolet, 500, $85815.
22. (41) Alex Bowman, Chevrolet, 499, $95087.
23. (38) Michael Annett, Chevrolet, 498, $85265.
24. (33) David Gilliland, Ford, 498, $93015.
25. (28) David Ragan, Toyota, 498, $111954.
26. (25) Greg Biffle, Ford, 497, $115598.
27. (35) Jeb Burton #, Toyota, 496, $85365.
28. (20) Sam Hornish, Jr., Ford, 493, $107560.
29. (39) J.J. Yeley(i), Toyota, 492, $81090.
30. (36) Matt DiBenedetto #, Toyota, 492, $82515.
31. (32) Trevor Bayne, Ford, 491, $125465.
32. (11) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 490, $129231.
33. (43) Alex Kennedy #, Chevrolet, 489, $80665.
34. (15) Kurt Busch, Chevrolet, 486, $98615.
35. (34) Brett Moffitt #, Ford, 479, $80565.
36. (42) Timmy Hill(i), Chevrolet, 459, $80515.
37. (1) Joey Logano, Ford, 458, $139538.
38. (18) Matt Kenseth, Toyota, Parked, 443, $112688.
39. (29) Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Ford, 423, $79680.
40. (16) Danica Patrick, Chevrolet, Accident, 391, $75680.
41. (40) Kyle Fowler, Ford, Brakes, 373, $63680.
42. (37) Ryan Preece, Ford, 365, $59680.
43. (17) Clint Bowyer, Toyota, Accident, 185, $90338.
Average Speed of Race Winner: 69.643 mph.
Time of Race: 3 Hrs, 46 Mins, 35 Secs. Margin of Victory: 0.335 Seconds.
Caution Flags: 18 for 109 laps.
Lead Changes: 21 among 9 drivers.
Lap Leaders: J. Logano 1-8; M. Truex Jr. 9-35; J. Logano 36-43; J. Gordon 44-53; J. Logano 54-59; Kurt Busch 60-81; J. Logano 82-158; A. Dillon 159-164; J. Logano 165-198; K. Harvick 199-236; B. Keselowski 237-239; J. Logano 240-255; B. Keselowski 256-282; J. Logano 283-292; B. Keselowski 293-388; J. Logano 389-393; B. Keselowski 394-410; J. Logano 411-453; J. Gordon 454-456; D. Hamlin 457-459; A. Allmendinger 460-478; J. Gordon 479-500.
Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led): J. Logano 9 times for 207 laps; B. Keselowski 4 times for 143 laps; K. Harvick 1 time for 38 laps; J. Gordon 3 times for 35 laps; M. Truex Jr. 1 time for 27 laps; Kurt Busch 1 time for 22 laps; A. Allmendinger 1 time for 19 laps; A. Dillon 1 time for 6 laps; D. Hamlin 1 time for 3 laps.
Top 16 in Points: J. Gordon – 4,047; Kyle Busch – 4,039; M. Truex Jr. – 4,039; K. Harvick – 4,037; C. Edwards – 4,030; B. Keselowski – 4,013; Kurt Busch – 4,011; J. Logano – 4,009; D. Hamlin – 2,251; R. Newman – 2,231; D. Earnhardt Jr. – 2,221; J. Mcmurray – 2,201; M. Kenseth – 2,197; J. Johnson – 2,193; P. Menard – 2,177; C. Bowyer – 2,124.
