Gordon wins Martinsville to earn spot in championship finale

The benefactor of all the dramatics was Jeff Gordon who finished first.

Look no further than the positive impact it’s already making on Texas Motor Speedway, site of the Chase’s next race, the AAA Texas 500.

From crashing and spinning, to pissed off drivers, and a teary-eyed man in Victory Lane; Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race had a little bit of everything.

Logano’s No. 22 Ford is the best vehicle in the entire circuit, and after getting smashed by Kenseth, Logano now stands 28 points below the cut line and must win at either Texas or Phoenix.

Brown won his second Top Fuel championship when he won one more round than Tony Schumacher.

“All these short runs and everything just killed us and we just went backwards on every restart, that’s kind of where we sealed our fate there”, reported Hamlin. “That’s a rock star moment right there”, the racer told ESPN. On a restart on lap 435, Kenseth and Logano’s teammate Brad Keselowski got together. With three races remaining, Jones leads Tyler Reddick by three points and Crafton by 10.

Busch, who has had plenty of run-ins with NASCAR over on-track incidents in his career, was asked Sunday his opinion about Kenseth’s actions toward Logano. Kenseth aimed at Logano, accelerated, spun him, then kept accelerating until both went into the wall.

But if NASCAR has in fact become a circus or devolved into the “wild, wild west”, then Kenseth acted as a clown on Sunday.

“I think this bracket, knock on wood over here, I think it’s going to be our best bracket yet”, Keselowski said. “I went by and I thought, ‘Wow!”

Kenseth downplayed the incident, deadpanning it was a result of his earlier incident with Keselowski, who had led 143 laps as the two Team Penske teammates were the class of the field. There were gestures and smiles exchanged, a sign they didn’t feel the No. 22 team’s title hopes were snuffed just yet despite Matt Kenseth’s hit job in Turn 1 – a crash that left Logano last of eight drivers in the Chase for the Sprint Cup standings. Kenseth has been furious since. Kenseth used his one bullet and fired it right into Logano’s door.

The sanctioning body will make a decision on whether or not Kenseth will be penalized on Tuesday, but Senior Vice-President Steve O’Donnell says in his eyes there is a difference between this wreck and Kansas.

“When you’re really, really good, like we were previous year, you nearly try not to mess it up instead of go win the race”.

Shortly after the accident in the garage area, Logano called Kenseth’s maneuver on the NBCSN telecast, “a complete coward move”. Just a complete coward.

“I ain’t going to argue with what Matt did”, Dale Earnhardt Jr. said.

Kenseth said he didn’t turned Logano intentionally. But he was summoned to the NASCAR hauler after the race for a meeting that his crew chief and auto owner Joe Gibbs attended. His race was over and he tried so hard to catch us the first time and he took out half the field, and he was successful the second time so I give that to him. He also indicated that payback had to be done. You never like to be in these situations. The Martinsville Speedway race was the first of the third round, or Eliminator Round of the Chase….

As darkness crept in, Gordon won the Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500, his ninth career win at the historic speedway. His last title was in 2001.

“That was clutch. That was huge”. Yeah, we had a few things that fell in our favor. Just when you think the absurdity is over, lighter fluid is poured over the faintest of sparks.