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"This baby just needed to be out front in clean air and it was a rocketship," Gordon said. "It's awesome to be back in Victory Lane."
Jimmie Johnson, Gordon's protege and Hendrick Motorsports teammate, started 26th and lost more ground when he spun out early in the race, but came back to finish second.
It was a typical short track race, with plenty of bumping and banging that produced 15 caution flags and a record 117 laps run under yellow.
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| Gordon leads the Winston Cup Series in laps led, and he led 311 on Sunday. Credit: Autostock |
As he did in his victory here in April, Gordon started from the pole, dominated early, struggled for a while, then came back even stronger.
Gordon, who now owns five victories at Martsinville, led the final 205 laps, easily pulling away on each of a series of restarts and staying out of trouble on the narrow track.
After a terrible July and August during which he had only two finishes better than 19th in a nine-race stretch, Gordon came into Sunday's race with five consecutive fifth-place finishes.
Johnson trailed Gordon's No. 24 Chevrolet across the finish line by 1.036-seconds -- about 5 car-lengths.
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Tony Stewart, coming off a victory eight days earlier in Charlotte, finished third, just ahead of Dale Earnhardt Jr., who appeared to have the second best car through most of the race.
The key moment of the day came on lap 405 under caution when Earnhardt, running a close second to Gordon and applying plenty of pressure on the leader, pitted for tires.
"He had a set of tires there we didn't like and they were getting worse and worse," said Tony Eury, Earnhardt's crew chief. "He wasn't going to win the race with those tires."
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| Gordon became the first driver since Rusty Wallace (1994) to sweep both Martinsville races in a single season. Credit: Autostock |
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None of the leaders needed any more gas to get to the end, but Gordon said he too was thinking about pitting for fresh tires. Robbie Loomis, Gordon's crew chief, told him to come in if Earnhardt did.
"Junior went in and I looked at my mirror and saw there weren't that many other guys that were coming (in) and I said, 'I'm sorry, but I can't do it with not that many guys coming.' Gordon explained. "Robbie said, 'All right, now it's all up to you. You've got to take those tires all the way to the end. You've got plenty of fuel.' I just tried to be as smooth as I could and keep after them."
Series leader Matt Kenseth, who came into the race with a 267-point margin over Kevin Harvick and 324 over Earnhardt, finished 13th and saw his lead over Harvick cut to 240 points with four races remaining.
"We knew this (race) was our weakest point coming up the rest of the year," the relieved Kenseth said. "Two out of the last four tracks we have coming up we've won at ... so I'm feeling good and ready to go."
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Earnhardt remained third, but chopped his margin to 283 going into the Oct. 26 race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
There was plenty of bent sheet metal and hurt feelings Sunday, but there were no serious accidents and no injuries reported.
"This place is fun when you've got a really good handling car," Kenseth said. "When you're off a little bit, it's a handful."
Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. |
