Jimmie Johnson showed his mastery of Martinsville Speedway winning the STP 500 Sunday with a dominating performance. Johnson held off Clint Bowyer and Jeff Gordon on a restart with nine laps to go to score the 62 victory of his career.
The win was Johnson’s eighth at NASCAR’s shortest track and broke a three way tie for third for most wins among he, Rusty Wallace and Jeff Gordon. Only Richard Petty (11) and Darrell Waltrip (11) have more wins.
Johnson led the most laps, 346 of the 500, on the day and was the car to beat but had to survive typical Martinsville mayhem behind him and the final caution that came out when Kurt Busch’s already bad day ended in a ball of flame with 15 laps to go. Busch lost the brakes on his car, hit the wall and slid along the backstretch leaving a trail of flame shooting from under the hood. Busch was able to bring the Chevy to a stop and climb out uninjured. The crash brought out a red flag with 13 laps to go.
“Something let go in the brakes,” Busch said. The brakes got real spongy and then the pedal went straight to the floor. I had to turn the car to the right otherwise I was going to hit harder than what we did. Fuel pump issue and then a brake issue, bummer day for the Furniture Row guys.
“It’s one of those things where we were running 38th 20 laps down what more can go wrong?” Busch added. “But I will find it out there for sure.”
In a repeat of last year’s race, Johnson led Bowyer, who rebounded after being involved in a ten car crash on lap 181, and Gordon to the green with less than 10 to go. Unlike last year when Bowyer took out himself, Johnson and Gordon in the final laps, Johnson was able to pull ahead and go on to victory.
“It was just a long-fought day,” Johnson said.”Martinsville stays the same over the years and you just have to dig-in and get into a rhythm and drive your own race and see how things unfold at the end and how things happen. Fortunately we didn’t have any craziness with two tires or four tires at the end.”
Bowyer was second, Gordon third with Kasey Kahne and Kyle Busch finishing inside the top five.
"Well, last year I had the upper hand with tires and it just didn't work out,” Bowyer said. “That time I was on the outside and it definitely was the opposite of that. It's just disappointing -- she was just tore up too bad. We were lucky to get back up where we were and make some good adjustments. All in all it was a good day.”
Brad Keselowski overcame several issues including a pit stop penalty to race Busch on the final lap for the fifth spot. He came up a tire length short to finish sixth.
“It was just a matter of how hard I wanted to work (Busch) over,” Keselowski said. “There’s a proper amount to work somebody over for a win and a proper amount to work somebody over for a fifth or a sixth. I worked him enough to feel proud about it.”
Jamie McMurray, Marcos Ambrose, Greg Biffle and Mark Martin driving in relief of the injured Denny Hamlin rounded out the top ten. Danica Patrick in her first appearance at Martinsville spun early but came from two laps down to finish a respectable 12.
“I feel like that’s almost one of the things I’m most proud of is coming back from two laps down to being on the lead lap,” Patrick said. “Then grabbing a 12th place at the end was good and I think it was the right call to stay out because I don’t think tires were quite worth enough to pit. So it was a good run today.”
Dale Earnhardt Jr. who came into the day leading the points, suffered his worst finish over the year, finishing 24 two laps down in part to a spin with 35 laps to go. Earnhardt fell to third in the standings behind Keselowski while Johnson, who became the season’s first repeat winner, took over the top spot as the series heads to Texas Motor Speedway next Saturday night.
“I feel like the fastest car won the race,” Johnson said. “It was a very standard Martinsville race; although I thought some guys might peel off and take tires. It was just a hard race. This race track is tough to get around. But we have a great notebook.”
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