Five of the top eight drivers in the point standings rank among the top 10 in average finish at Martinsville, including defending race winner Denny Hamlin and Jeff Gordon, whose seven victories at the track are tops among active drivers. In fact, Gordon has not finished outside the top 10 at Martinsville in the past 12 races, dating to a 36th-place run on Oct. 20, 2002. In 32 races at the 0.526 track, Gordon also has 20 top-five finishes and 26 top-10s.

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However, as sterling as Gordon's record is at the track, Jimmie Johnson has emerged as the driver to beat at Martinsville. He enters Sunday with a string of 13 consecutive top-10 finishes at the track and has won four of the past five races. In the 12 races since 2003, only five drivers have celebrated in Victory Lane, led by Johnson (5) and Gordon (4). No other driver has multiple wins during that time.

So what does Sunday hold, after all it's just the sixth race of the season? Will Gordon continue to hold serve in the point standings? Will Johnson, the three-time defending series champion, break through for his first victory after a slow start to the season? Whatever the case, the competition isn't conceding anything to Hendrick Motorsports' dynamic duo -- or to the quirky track, which features both asphalt and concrete as its racing surfaces.

"It's a short track, but it's not like any other short track you've ever been to," said Clint Bowyer, who is third in the standings, 79 points behind leader Gordon. "It goes against everything your tendencies tell you to do. You have to back the corner up; you have to let the car roll way around the corner before you get back on the gas.

"Your tendencies are to get in the corner as deep as you can and get back on the throttle as fast as possible. Those are two things that are catastrophic there, so you've got to discipline yourself and stay disciplined throughout the race.

"[Martinsville] wasn't one of my best tracks when I was starting out," Bowyer added. "I'd never seen a place like that before." In 2006, Bowyer finished 22nd and 23rd in his first two races at Martinsville. Since then, he has finished 11th, ninth, 10th and ninth.

"I'm still learning there but we've improved tremendously," Bowyer said. "We just need to work on finding a little more speed. It's not like we're out to lunch and need to re-invent the wheel. I just need to continue to massage my techniques and I need to get a little more aggressive at times. It's a place where you really need to be aggressive."

Kurt Busch, who is second in points, 76 behind Gordon, has seven wins, nine top-five finishes and 18 top-10s in 50 career short-track races -- but he has struggled recently at Martinsville. He has three consecutive finishes of 31st or worse and has not posted a top-10 since Oct. 23, 2005.

"It was a pretty long learning curve for me to get the hang of racing at Martinsville," Busch said. "It's such a demanding track on the driver and especially the equipment. It's one of the toughest tracks to find your own space because there are so many cars and somebody is always on top of you. It's hard to protect your race car.

"That's the thing you have to do at Martinsville; know you're in it for 500 laps and that you can't get into too big of a hurry in the early portions of the race because anything can happen."

Nonetheless, he remains optimistic his good start to the season will continue at Martinsville.

"We came out of Bristol OK as far as the big picture goes," Busch said, "but we know we have to work on our short-track qualifying packages and we have to get our cars turning better during the races.

"I'm confident that we have a pretty good handle on the intermediate tracks right now and we've shown so much promise in those races so far this season," said Busch, who won the 2002 fall race at Martinsville from the 36th starting spot, the furthest back a race winner has started. "We have to concentrate on any weak links we encounter and right now those are qualifying better and getting our cars to turn better on the short tracks."

But it's Gordon who remains the benchmark for active drivers on short tracks. Since 1993, he has 15 wins and 11 second-place finishes on tracks less than one mile in length; his average finish in those 105 starts is 11.2.

"You must have a lot of patience [at Martinsville], Gordon said."Just to run a single lap by yourself, you have to be patient and not overdrive the car. And you certainly need to be more patient when it comes to traffic.

"From an observer's vantage point, it's probably just one constant flow of cars. But for me, it's just that one, two or three cars ahead of me that I'm focusing on. You get into such a rhythm and such a zone here -- it's amazing on how you block out how much traffic there really is. I don't even think about there being 40 cars on the track."

Lately, it's been one car everyone else has been chasing on the track -- Johnson's No. 48. And even with his successes at Martinsville, Johnson wasn't always the lead dog at the track.

"It is such a difficult track and a challenging track," Johnson said. "Not only do you have to deal with frustration and understand that track, I don't think you can grow up racing on any surface or any level racing in the country and be ready for [Martinsville].

"My first time there we tested twice because the first test there went so bad. The second time we came back for the race and nothing worked. When I came back the second time and Tony Stewart was lapping me, I followed him and learned the rhythm and it clicked in my brain and I was like, 'oh, that's how you do it.' I salvaged a decent day out of that run and I've been getting better and better each time I've been there."

Indeed, Johnson's first race ended with a 35th-place finish -- his only DNF -- on April 14, 2002. Since then, he's been a fixture in the top 10 on race day.

"I really enjoy the track. It's such a quirky, odd track that we run at," Johnson said. "You're off the gas when you should be and you're on the gas when you should and I can get that rhythm."

For Gordon and Johnson, there's also team and manufacturer pride on the line this weekend. Chevrolet has won 45 of the 120 Cup Series races at Martinsville, more than any other manufacturer -- but the make is winless in 2009. However, a Chevy driver has won 10 of the past 12 races at the track, nine of the 10 won by Gordon and Johnson.

The return to Martinsville also marks the 25th anniversary of HMS' first Cup Series victory, by Geoffrey Bodine in the Sovran Bank 500 on April 29, 1984.