NASCAR Chase Race No. 7: Jimmie Johnson wins at Martinsville
By Ted Fleming
Johnson’s ninth victory at “The Paperclip” secures his place in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway where he will make a run at his seventh championship.
Jimmie Johnson was able to weave his way through lap traffic to hold off a charging Brad Keselowski to take the Goody’s Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway Sunday afternoon. The victory was the 79th of his career, but more importantly he has positioned himself to make a run as his seventh title by advancing to the Final Four in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Nov. 20.
In the current Chase for the Sprint Cup format, Johnson had never advanced into the Round of 8 and now he has punched his ticket into the championship round. As a member of Hendrick Motorsports, he gave car owner Rick Hendrick his 24th Martinsville win.
“I’ve been trying to ignore this conversation about seven (championships) but now I can’t,” said Johnson. “We’re locked in. I’m just honored to be in this position. I wouldn’t be in this position without the belief of Lowe’s and all their employees had in me back when I was running 10th or 15th in the Busch Series. Rick Hendrick, Jeff Gordon… all of the people who have believed in me to get this point. It’s crazy that we have a shot at seven now.”
Entering the race, Joe Gibbs Racing has won four of the five short track races this year and with all four of their cars making the Chase their odds were pretty good to get their fifth. Unfortunately, Johnson’s victory will eliminate at least one of their foursome from winning the title as there are just two events left in this round.
Jeff Gordon has a long history of success at Martinsville and stayed in contention most of the race even though he fought for track position most of the afternoon, but still finished a solid sixth.
It was an unusually clean fall race at the 0.526 mile oval with only five cautions, none for any multiple car wrecks. However, there was a lot of confusion after the final yellow. It took some time to sort out how the field was set for the restart after Carl Edwards brought out the caution at lap 357 and 28 laps later, Denny Hamlin led the pack to the green flag. Hamlin overcame a speeding penalty to finish third.
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One team that took a hit to their title hopes was Stewart-Haas Racing. Kevin Harvick was two laps down at the end and finished 20th and if in the bottom half of the standings 16 points below the cutoff line while teammate Kurt Busch was three down in 22nd and is -18.
The only other Chase driver to finish lower was Carl Edwards who was taken out with a late race single car crash to finish 36th. He is in eight, 32 off the pace. The final man the negative is Joey Logano although he is just four points behind Kyle Busch in fourth.
PIT NOTES:
Jeff Gordon made what could be his final start in NASCAR subbing for Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the No. 88 Chevy SS. Alex Bowman is penciled in for the final three Sprint Cup races of the season for Hendrick Motorsports. Earnhardt was at the track and made an appearance in the NASCAR on Fox booth, but he also met the media before the race and talked about making commitments to sponsors and plans to be in the car next year.
“My intentions are to race and that is the plan that we have going forward so we are booking things as normal per usual,” he said. “We are doing all our photoshoots and everything with anticipation of our sponsors marketing me as the driver of the No. 88 car. I think that is perfectly on track and a reasonable goal to be in the car and be competing in Daytona. We can’t sort of sit and wait. We’ve got to make a decision. Those types of things have to be decided quite early. So, we are moving forward with the plan to be in the car and I don’t see anything that says that is not going to happen. Things are good.”
Ricky Stenhouse brought out the first caution when he lost his back end and crashed into the outside wall knocking him out of the race. He was in a backup car because he did the exact same thing on Friday.
“It was the same thing that happened in qualifying,” he said. “I just got in the brakes and the rear end start hopping. You lose all grip as soon as it happens, so that seems to be a typical thing for us at Martinsville – not finishing these races clean. I hate it for all the Fastenal guys and all of our fans.”
On the first round of yellow flag pit stops, Denny Hamlin was nailed for another speeding penalty on pit row, his 10th of the season.
CAUTIONS:
Lap 22 – Ricky Stenhouse spins and hits wall. (Hamlin, Edwards too fast on pit row)
Lap 60 – David Ragan car smoking. Gray Gaulding gets free pass.
Lap 132 – Debris on track. Trevor Bayne gets free pass. (Harvick pit row speeding)
Lap 199 – Sign on wall came loose. Trevor Bayne gets free pass.
Lap 358 – Carl Edwards hits wall during green flag pit stops. Jeff Gordon gets free pass.
GOODY’S FAST RELIEF 500 FINAL RESULTS:
1 – Jimmie Johnson
2 – Brad Keselowski
3 – Denny Hamlin
4 – Matt Kenseth
5 – Kyle Busch
6 – Jeff Gordon
7 – Martin Truex Jr.
8 – Jamie McMurray
9 – Joey Logano
10 – AJ Allmendinger
11 – Kasey Kahne
12 – Chase Elliott
13 – Greg Biffle
14 – Kyle Larson
15 – Aric Almirola
16 – Ryan Newman
17 – Austin Dillon
18 – Michael McDowell
19 – Ryan Blaney
20 – Kevin Harvick
21 – Casey Mears
22 – Kurt Busch
23 – Trevor Bayne
24 – Danica Patrick
25 – Paul Menard
26 – Tony Stewart
27 – Chris Buescher
28 – Clint Boyer
29 – Landon Cassill
30 – Regan Smith
31 – Dylan Lupton
32 – Matt DiBenedetto
33 – Jeffrey Earnhardt
34 – Brian Scott
35 – Michael Annett
36 – Carl Edwards
37 – David Ragan
38 – Reed Sorenson
39 – Gray Gaulding
40 – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.