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MARTINSVILLE, Va. — One week after three Joe Gibbs Racing cars finished in order by executing a conservative strategy at Talladega Superspeedway, another JGR trio repeated the bumper-to-bumper feat Sunday at Martinsville Speedway.
This time, however, the approach was a far less conservative tack, one that spurred some slight discord among the group.
As race winner Jimmie Johnson held off Brad Keselowski down the stretch in the Goody’s Fast Relief 500, Denny Hamlin, Matt Kenseth and Kyle Busch — in order — neatly rounded out the top five. Their results provided JGR’s championship bid with a points boost, but fell short of the automatic transfer spot secured by Johnson on the .526-mile bullring.
Their stature in the standings was slightly obscured by their hard-nosed racing down the stretch, something that Busch said allowed Johnson’s No. 48 Chevrolet and Keselowski’s No. 2 Ford to scoot away in the late-afternoon sun.
“You can’t wreck each other and that’s all there is to it, I guess,” said Busch, the defending premier series champion. “We worked so good together that we gave the 48 car the win today. That’s how good JGR is. We had a great M&M’s Camry and we could have been a little farther up front, but we were held up there and we couldn’t pass and if I did try to make moves or try to make a pass, I got cut off. But we came through it with a top five.”
Last weekend at Talladega, Kenseth, teammate Carl Edwards and Busch lagged behind the main pack, playing it safe as a show of teamwork while Hamlin charged ahead to keep his Chase hopes alive. The back three finished 28th through 30th while Hamlin took third. All four JGR entries claimed spots in the Round of 8.
Sunday at Martinsville, Hamlin, Kenseth and Busch all led laps, with Kenseth accumulating a race-high 176 laps out front, with a conservative strategy out of the question. Only Edwards wasn’t among the late-race JGR contenders, crashing after a tire issue sent him into the wall with 142 laps remaining.
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Early in the race, Gibbs drivers extended the common courtesy to allow their teammates to quickly align single-file shortly after restarts. But once the late-race pressure ratcheted up a level, the give-and-take among teammates was far less generous.
“That’s the tough part of it, for sure,” said Hamlin, a five-time Martinsville winner. “We’re in a team business, but we’re also in a business to win for our sponsors and ourselves. I think at the end, you have to do what’s best for yourself. We made deals about restarts and things like that. Obviously, I think I got two taps or something like that from the 20 (Kenseth), but I definitely didn’t feel like we were holding anyone up at the end by any means. I didn’t even see the 18 (Busch) at the end.
“But, you know, it’s just part of it. We’re all frustrated. We had probably the first-, second-, third-fastest cars throughout the day, then we end up three, four, five. It’s frustrating for all of us.”
Joe Gibbs Racing still has four playoff-eligible drivers vying to be a part of the championship battle, but Johnson’s victory Sunday prevents the organization from making a Homestead clean sweep.
Two more chances for automatic berths exist next week at Texas Motor Speedway and the following weekend at Phoenix International Raceway.
“We had a good day, not a great day,” Kenseth said. “The guy having a great day is the guy doing a burnout.”