Jimmie Johnson Wins at Martinsville

Jimmie Johnson scored his ninth Martinsville victory

Chris Trotman/NASCAR via Getty Images

Jimmie Johnson moved one step closer to an historic seventh Sprint Cup Championship after taking the checkered flag in Sunday’s Goody’s Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway to punch his ticket into the Championship 4 season finale at Homestead in just three weeks.

Johnson rallied from running out of gas during a chaotic caution period late in the race to led the final 92 laps and beat out Brad Keselowski by 1.2 seconds to score his fourth win of the season and 79^th of his career in the opening race in the Round of 8 in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship.

Denny Hamlin was third, followed by Matt Kenseth and Kyle Busch.

Johnson’s Martinsville victory was his ninth at the .526 mile facility, which holds a special place in Johnson’s heart along with the entire Hendrick Motorsports family following the fatal October 2004 plane crash that killed ten members of the Hendrick team.

"There were a lot of moments but anything in life you have to work for it. It’s not going to come easy and we knew that coming into this race," said Johnson. "There are so many challenges with this track. I’m so thankful for this race team.

"To win on this weekend at this track with the tragedy we had in ’04, we’re thinking of all the loved ones that we lost in the plane crash. We want to thank our family and friends. It’s a great time to start winning races."

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"] Early in the race, it looked like another domination by the Toyota teams as Martin Truex, Jr. showed the way up front for 147 of the opening 180 laps , moving aside to allow his follow Toyota drivers Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth to lead a lap each to pick up some needed bonus points.

On lap 181, Kenseth took over the top spot and led a race-high 176 laps with his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Hamlin and Kyle Busch in tow as the field spread out through a 151-lap green-flag run.

The long caution-free run set up a rare round of green flag pit stops around lap 354 that would prove to be the turning point of the race.

With more than half the field completing their stops, Carl Edwards blew a tire and smacked the wall to bring out the caution flag, catching most of the leaders on pit road.

Johnson, who had yet to pit, actually ran out of gas while waiting for NASCAR to re-open pit road, but managed to get the car re-fired and back onto the track and was able to pit with the rest of the lead-lap cars.

The caution flag tossed the field like a dinner salad, with more than half the field caught a lap down and as many as 20 cars opting to take the wave-around as NASCAR kept the field behind the pace car for a staggering 29 laps while they sorted out the running order.

Johnson was scored third behind Hamlin and Kyle Busch for the restart and quickly over took Kyle Busch for second and began to close in on Hamlin.

Johnson beat out Brad Keselowski by 1.291 seconds

Matt Sullivan/NASCAR via Getty Images

On lap 407, Johnson drove right up on Hamlin’s bumper and began working him for the lead, finally getting around him two laps later. Hamlin came right back and tried to put a fender on Johnson as he had earlier in the race, but thought better of it and backed off.

Once out in front, Johnson motored out to as much as a three-second lead over the next 90 laps with the JGR powerhouse trio of Hamlin, Kenseth and Kyle Busch giving chase.

After working so well together earlier in the race, the honeymoon was over between the teammates as they jockeyed for position, with Kenseth laying blocks on Kyle Busch while they battled for third.

With JGR refusing to play nice, Keselowski took advantage and raced his way past all three to take over the second spot with 23 laps to go, but Johnson was too far gone to have any chance of catching him without a caution, which never materialized.

When asked if he could have caught Johnson if he had more laps, Keselowski answered with an emphatic "Yes."

"We don't need to run a hundred laps under yellow with the field not trying to figure out where they're at.," said Keselowski. "It probably cost us the race."

Despite the fact that three of the four JGR teams are now in the top four in the points standings, Kyle Busch in was critical of his teammates for not working together in the final laps"

"We worked so good together that we gave the 48 (Jimmie Johnson) car the win today. That’s how good JGR is," said Kyle Busch. "You can’t wreck each other and that’s all there is to it I guess. We probably could have been about second, I don’t know if we could have got up there and caught the 48 as long as we got caught up behind all that stuff, but we had a fifth-place car today and we showed that today."

Matt Kenseth led a race-high 176 laps but ended the day fourth

Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images

"We had a good day, not a great day," said Kenseth. "The chips just didn’t fall our way today, but we had a good car, we led some laps and ran a little better than we finished, but we still got a pretty decent finish out of it."

Joey Logano finished ninth and is now fifth in the Chase standings. Stewart-Haas Racing teammates Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch finished 20^th and 22^nd respectively and are now sixth and seventh in points. Edwards ended the day 36^th and holds the eighth and final spot in the standings.

Race Results

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