NASCAR Sprint Cup: Johnson takes points lead with 9th-place run at Martinsville

Martinsville, VA - With a solid ninth-place finish today in the rain-delayed Goody's Fast pain Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway, Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe's Chevrolet, takes over the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points lead. Jeff Gordon brought the No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet to the checkered flag in third in the overtime finish that brought the 500-lap advertised race total to 508 laps. Gordon led four times during the day for a total of 92 laps and jumped four spots in the standings to seventh place.

Ryan Newman brought the No. 39 Haas-Automation Chevrolet home in the fourth finishing position and moved him up to 22nd in the standings.

Clint Bowyer, No. 33 BB&T Chevrolet, continued his climb in the standings with a seventh place finish in today's race that jumped him to ninth in points.

It was a tough day for former points leader Kevin Harvick, No. 29 Shell-Pennzoil Chevrolet, who dropped to fourth in the standings with a 35th place finish. He led twice for 57 laps before brake issues forced him to the garage twice during the race for repairs.

Jeff Burton, No. 31 Caterpillar Chevrolet, saw a possible win slip away when a flat tire forced him to pit road with less than 15 laps remaining while battling for the lead.  He led five times for a total of 140 laps and sits fifth in the standings with his 20th place finish. Tony Stewart, No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet is eighth in points after fighting handling issues today that relegated him to the 26th finishing position.

Dale Earnhardt, Jr., No. 88 AMP Sugar Free Lightning/National Guard Chevrolet, is 10th in the standings with a 15th place finish in race six of the season. The series will take next weekend off and then head to Phoenix International Raceway on Saturday, April 10, 2010.

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT CHEVROLET PRESS CONF TRANSCRIPT – Finished 3rd:

KERRY THARP:  We'll roll into our post race interviews.  We're joined in our media center by third place finisher Jeff Gordon.  He drives the No. 24 Dupont Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports.

Jeff, certainly an interesting race out there this afternoon.  Maybe take us through the final few laps.

JEFF GORDON:  I mean, we were just trying to hang on there on the old tires.  You know, I was pretty happy with the way the day went other than getting shuffled back on the outside on the restarts.  It was really, really tough out there on restarts if you weren't on the inside lane.

We played a lot of catch up from that most of the day.  Our car was pretty good.  We had to make adjustments for it in traffic.  Made us really have to loosen the car up.

We were just kind of riding there at the end, going to come home third, then that caution came out, leaders came in.  Steve Letarte made a great call to stay out.  When we heard about all the cars that stayed out behind us, we felt we were definitely the car to beat for the win.

Then we had the restart.  Had a good restart.  Everything was great.  We were a hundred feet away from getting that white flag, getting the victory.  So that's frustrating.  But I shouldn't be too upset.  We were a third place car before that, we finished third.  I'm not exactly sure what happened on the restart, that last restart.  I got an okay restart.  Spun the tires a little bit, got going.  I looked at my mirror, 17 was pretty far behind me.  Made sure I didn't drive in too deep.  Next thing I know, I got nailed.  I don't know who got into me.  I thought it was the 17.  If it wasn't, I apologize to him.  I made sure he didn't win the race down the straightaway.

KERRY THARP:  We'll take questions, please.

Q.  Jeff, I realize that you would have been happy with a third place finish had the caution not come out, nice accomplishment.  Something outside of your control goes wrong, you raise your expectations, do you feel you could use a break for a change?

JEFF GORDON:  I mean, yes and no.  I feel like you have to earn those things.  If we just keep working hard, putting good racecars and a great race team out there each and every week, those breaks go your way.  I've been on both sides of it.  There's times when you're not really sure if you deserve some of those breaks, but you know you're working hard, you take them.  There's times when you wish you got more breaks.

It was pretty obvious to me NASCAR wanted to do a green white checkered finish.  There were cars blowing tires, hitting the wall, they weren't throwing the caution.  One spins out, and they threw the caution in the blink of an eye.  I think it was pretty obvious what they wanted.

You got to go with what their decisions are.  It's a Monday race.  A lot of fans came out here.  So certainly a great finish for them.  Just unfortunate it took away an opportunity for us because we definitely had that win had the caution not come out there at the end.

Then again, you look at the Gibbs cars, they were 1 2 when the caution came out.  You know, that could have gone the opposite way for them.  So you can't really get upset when those breaks don't go your way.

Q.  Jeff, Matt said afterwards, the 24 never gives him room, the next time things will be different.  Was the contact between you and him basically what took it out of your hands?

JEFF GORDON:  Well, I'd like to see.  I have not seen the replay.  All I know is he was behind me.  I got hit and thrown up the racetrack.  He was the first car to go by me.  You know, again, if that wasn't him that made contact with me, then I owe him an apology.  We've had our run ins and different things.

The way he raced me today I didn't think was the way I would have raced him.  But we've had our ups and our downs.  But I feel like we've been past that.  I certainly didn't feel like we had any issues.

If somebody hits me, I'm going to hit them.  If he hit me, I'm glad I did what I did on the back straightaway.  If a guy gives you a cheap shot like that, he doesn't deserve to win the race, in my opinion.  If that didn't happen, and I have not seen the video, then, again, I'll be the first one to call him this week and apologize.

Q.  Jeff, can you give a definition or understanding of what's a cheap shot in a green white checkered situation on a short track and what's allowable?  Certainly those last two laps, there was a lot of action.  Obviously Denny bulled his way up there.

JEFF GORDON:  But Denny had four tires.  That's different.  He had a car that would stick and turn around, go underneath guys.  He could out brake guys.  Hey, he won the race.  So it doesn't matter.  That's the bottom line.

You know, a cheap shot to me is when you don't really have a shot at it, you just go and rub into the back of a guy.  That's what I think is a cheap shot.

Q.  Jeff, I don't want to ask if you feel like you got set up by the whole thing, but when they pitted, in light of what you said about NASCAR wanting a green white checkered, did you think it was going to come down to that kind of scrum at the end where you and Matt would kind of get muffled out of position?

JEFF GORDON:  Man, you're complicating it way too much for me.  I'm just a racecar driver.  I was leading, coming off turn four, really looking forward to seeing the white flag.  The caution came out.  I said, Oh, man, that stinks.  Okay, let's get going again.  Let's get a good restart.  Let's get through turns one and two, see that white flag again.

You know, it is what it is.  You know there's a guy in the second row with four tires.  I wasn't even thinking anything about me and Matt.  I knew Matt had an okay car 'cause we had been battling before that.  But, you know, I was as concerned about Ryan on the outside as I was anything else.

You know, all I can tell you is you know it's gonna get wild and crazy.  Doesn't mean you're gonna like it, you know.  If you're the guys behind, that's what you do.  You run into the back of a guy because you want to win.  When you're the guy up front, you hope nobody runs into the back of you.  It's that simple.

Q.  Jeff, how worried were y'all at the end of the race with a lot of tires having gone down?  Did you notice something on the track causing a lot of these tires to go?

JEFF GORDON:  Yeah, I didn't really worry too much.  I always worry about when you got a guy like Jeff Burton has a problem.  He'd been up front all day.  When he had a problem, I think I lost a 10th or two there at the end.  I had just gotten by Clint Bowyer.  Looked like he kind of let me have the spot because he was having some issues.

We were just kind of riding, just trying to make it to the finish.  We were in a position to be able to do that.  To me it's always a concern, but when you look at the cars, the problems they had, they're usually in the middle of the pack, guys, like Joey said, that had contact or they're overheating them.  We hadn't had that situation in the past, so I wasn't overall concerned.

Q.  Jeff, when you saw the 11 and the 18 dive to pit road with eight laps to go, what was your reaction?  Did that decision surprise you to find yourself first?

JEFF GORDON:  Yeah, a little bit.  We didn't expect them to come in.  There were so many lapped cars in between us, we had time to talk about it.  I saw him peeling off.  The 11 started to peel off there.  I said to Steve, They're pitting.  He said, You stay out.  Wasn't even a second thought for us.

If we had come in, we certainly weren't going to win the race.  The only chance we had to win the race was to stay out.  I was pretty happy when I saw how many guys stayed out.  That definitely was a big plus for us.  You know, it's one of the those things.  Caution comes out, we're sitting here third, mad because we got knocked around.  Had the caution not come out, we would be over in Victory Lane.

That's how quick and easy things can change in this sport.  You know, it's something that I'll laugh about tomorrow.

Q.  Jeff, you've talked coming into this race about getting better in the second half of races.  Again today, you led a lot of laps early on.  Did you feel like you made the progression you needed to or is there more to work on?  Joey, could you talk about the final couple laps, what you saw Denny do and how he did it.

JEFF GORDON:  I did feel like we got off a little bit there towards the middle part of the race and made gains to get back up there.  Yeah, I felt like we made gains.

Today was all about where you restarted.  If you restarted on the outside lane, you were done.  I lost like five or six spots one time just being on the outside lane.  I made two of them up.  Caution came out.  Went back to the outside lane, lost two or three more.

To me, I almost wanted to like let off and let a car pass me on pit road or something just so I could come out odd to start on the inside lane.  When I started on the inside lane, we drove right up there.

When we lost those positions, we lost track position and the car wasn't the same.  When we were out front, our car was just so awesome.  We never really got a chance to see what it was like towards the front there at the end.  So that was a little disappointing.  I felt like we made gains to get up to third or fourth before the second to the last caution."

KERRY THARP:  Thank you.  Congratulations.  Have a good week off.

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