NASCAR: NSCS -- Martinsville: Tums Fast Relief 500 Results

Image by Hans J E via FlickrDenny Hamlin rallied to pick up his third straight Sprint Cup Series win at Martinsville Sunday in the Tums Fast Relief 500, Kevin Harvick finished a surprising third, and we're left with the closest points battle with four races to go in the history of the Chase format.  And the true wild-card race in the Chase, Talladega, is up next.

The final 98 laps (of 500) were run under green, a benefit to Hamlin whose car was much better on long runs.  On the final restart on Lap 402, Harvick led the field to green with Jeff Burton second and Hamlin third.  Hamlin got around Burton on Lap 453, then battled Harvick side-by-side for several laps before finally taking the lead for good on Lap 471.

Hamlin started on the pole and led the first ten laps until he was passed by Marcos Ambrose.  By the first caution 47 laps in, Hamlin had faded to 12th.  But the crew kept working and the track finally came to Hamlin.  He beat Mark Martin to the finish by 2.318 seconds.  It was Hamlin's 15th career Cup win, his series-leading seventh of the year, and his fourth at Martinsville, including the last three in a row.

Martin's day started out bad, then got much worse before he put on a furious rally at the end to finish second.  By Lap 30, Martin was overheating his brakes and had to baby them the rest of the way.  On Lap 226, he spun, backing into the wall and doing considerable damage to his car.  He fell two laps down and was 18th on the final restart before rallying to a runnerup finish.  He was coming hard at the end and might have won if the race had gone ten laps more.  Martin said adjustments didn't make much of a difference. "I think the race track just came to us. We had a good setup in the car for the race track when it was rubbered up in the second half of the race."

Harvick, whose previous best at the track was a seventh-place finish, was expected to lose ground in the points battle.  His 36th-place start also added to those predictions.  But he quickly moved up through the field.  By that first caution on Lap 47, he was in ninth, three spots ahead of Hamlin.  He stayed near the front for the rest of the race and led most of that last long green flag run until Hamlin and Martin passed him in the closing laps.  Harvick also benefited from a crew swap with Clint Bowyer before the race.

After a long, multi-lap battle, Kyle Busch pulled ahead of Johnson in the closing laps to finish fourth.  Johnson, whose car was much better on short runs, held on for fifth, followed by Joey Logano.  Dale Earnhardt Jr. led 90 laps around the midpoint of the race and finished seventh for just his second top 10 in the last 14 races.  Carl Edwards, Jeff Burton and Brad Keselowski rounded out the top 10.

Burton led a race-high 134 laps before fading at the end.  After a restart on Lap 364, he got into an on-track feud with Harvick, his RCR teammate.  Burton was running on the outside and attempted to cut down in front of Harvick.  Harvick cut him off, then accused Burton of cutting him off.  Over the radio, he also accused Burton of doing the same thing at Indy and Loudon.  A short time later, during another caution, Harvick bumped doors with Burton.  For his part, Burton was perplexed:  "I have no clue what he could possibly be upset about.  I cleared him and turned to the bottom the same way he cleared me on the restart and turned to the bottom.  It's Martinsville, that's what you do."  Calmer heads eventually prevailed, and Harvick dismissed the dustup in his postrace press conference:  "We were just racing."

Another on-track incident put the final dagger in Jeff Gordon's fading championship hopes.  On Lap 384, Gordon was trying to nose ahead of Kurt Busch going into Turn Three.  He came in too hot and the two got together.  Gordon tapped Busch.  Busch got loose and Gordon went around him.  But Busch accelerated and caught Gordon coming out of Four.  He hooked him and spun him down the frontstretch.  Gordon lost a lap as his crew tried to repair the damage.  He got the lap back, but lost two more on the final green flag run as his damaged car struggled to keep up.  Gordon got inside of Busch again in the closing laps and pushed him up the track.  Busch lost one spot as a result and finished 16th.  Gordon finished 20th.

Other Chase drivers:  Matt Kenseth finished 15th, Tony Stewart 24th, Greg Biffle 33rd, and Clint Bowyer 38th.  (Race results)

The top three in the points standings have tightened up with Johnson's lead over Hamlin down to just six points.  Harvick gained 15 points on Johnson and is now just 62 points behind.  Although no one has been eliminated yet, it really is a three-man race with just four races remaining.  With his fourth-place finish, Kyle Busch moved into fourth in the standings, 172 points back.  Gordon dropped to fifth, 203 points behind Johnson.