Gordon, Kenseth left to point fingers at Martinsville

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- One minute they were battling for the victory in the Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway.

The next, Jeff Gordon was happy to be hanging onto third place -- and Matt Kenseth was up into the outside wall, fortunate to place 18th. Neither driver was happy with the other after they tangled on the final green-white-checkered finish Monday at the half-mile track.

Final Laps

Denny Hamlin charges to the front shortly after Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth make contact.

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Gordon was leading on the final double-file restart and chose the inside starting position, with Kenseth lined up behind him in third. What happened next was disputed by the two parties involved -- but according to video replays, it appeared that Kenseth bumped Gordon, and then rode Gordon's No. 24 Chevrolet up the race track. At the earliest opportunity, Gordon darted back to the inside and gave Kenseth a little tap in return, sending Kenseth up the track and out of contention for the race win. It also appeared -- again according to the video replays -- that Kenseth overdrove his No. 17 Ford into the corner and had himself to at least partially blame for his demise.

While all that was going on, eventual race winner Denny Hamlin gave Ryan Newman a little tap himself and got by Newman's No. 39 Chevy, and then drove past the dueling cars of Gordon and Kenseth all the way to Victory Lane.

"I guess it looked like it was my fault," Kenseth said. "I did go in there and I did get into Jeff a little bit, really not that hard. I got under him and everything was fine and he just took a left as hard as he could take one and ran me down all the way into the marbles.

"So then I've got all the marbles on my rear tires and I slowed up to try to get in the corner real slow and I kind of got hit from behind and I got hit in the side and started wheel-hopping. I couldn't hang onto it when I got to [Turn] 3." (Continued)