Quotes & Notes: M'ville

Short-track racing promises bumping and grinding, and Martinsville Speedway never fails to deliver.

Along with the chrome horn comes several dents in the ego. Emotions run high around the .526-mile paperclip-shaped speedway. They were on display for Sundays' Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500 as hot heads were a product of hot brakes, which melted several tires.

The nudging and shoving was there, as a bump-n-run pass ultimately decided the race. What's ironic is the only man cussing was the one watching it all unfold.

Race Video

• Final Laps: Johnson's pass
• Press Pass: Jimmie Johnson
• Press Pass: Denny Hamlin
• Press Pass: Tony Stewart
• Post-Race Reactions

"I assume that he knew he ran me down because he didn't come back down in Turn 1 and dump me. So he tried to put the squeeze on me and I was up on the curb and sliding. We got together and he did a hell of a job saving it."
-- Jimmie Johnson, on the race-winning pass

"We're not going to win the championship this weekend. We're going to have to win the championship later on in the season. Yeah, it sucks that you didn't win, but things don't always fall our way, and [Sunday], they didn't."
-- Denny Hamlin, on his emotions (second)

"I was just cussing at myself because I wasn't close enough to do anything about it."
-- Tony Stewart, on the winning pass (third)

"I have no groove -- I'm just hanging on the whole time."
-- Marcos Ambrose, on his first trip to Martinsville in a Cup car (14th)

"We wrestled it all we could without crashing. I know we took a hit in the points. Love [Sunday], but I'm just glad to get out of here and not any worse off."
-- Kurt Busch, on his difficulties Sunday (18th)

"We just got run over by a lapped car that had his eyes rolled back in his head and ran over us for no reason. It's disappointing when you run top-10 all day and you don't really touch anybody all day for Martinsville and then have somebody spin you out."
-- David Reutimann, on contact with David Stremme (20th)

"This track is just not my track. We've run as good as we can here, but it's tough for us. We could never get the thing to turn and get good grip off. Every once in a while we run good, but we're just missing that little bit of something."
-- Greg Biffle, on his day at Martinsville (28th)

"I like this track a lot, but never seem to run well here. [Sunday], we had a pretty good car. We had a tire go flat and that put us down early. We just never had a chance to recover."
-- Sam Hornish Jr., on his tire issues (34th)

"I'm sure Kyle Busch is going to offer to buy me dinner, since this is the second time this year he's wrecked me. So I'm looking forward to that."
-- Scott Speed, on getting collected by Kyle Busch when Busch cut a tire (39th)

• Jimmie Johnson won the Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500, his 41st victory in 261 Sprint Cup Series races.

• This is Johnson's first victory and fourth top-10 finish in 2009. His last previous victory came at Phoenix in November 2008.

• This is Johnson's sixth victory and 14th top-10 finish in 15 races at Martinsville Speedway. Johnson now has more Sprint Cup wins at Martinsville -- six -- than any other track. (He has five at Lowe's Motor Speedway.)

• Denny Hamlin (second) posted his seventh top-10 finish in eight races at Martinsville Speedway. It is his third top-10 finish in 2009.

• Tony Stewart (third) posted his 12th top-10 finish in 21 races at Martinsville Speedway.

• Joey Logano (32nd) was the highest-finishing rookie.

• Jeff Gordon leads the point standings by 89 points over Clint Bowyer.