Jeff Gordon survived some late-race drama in Martinsville, Virginia on Sunday to win his ninth and final race at the famous .526-mile paperclip and lock himself into the championship round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup in Homestead, Florida in three weeks' time. It was an emotional 93rd Cup Series win for the outgoing veteran. Gordon failed to make the final four of the Chase last year after an incident with Brad Keselowsku at Texas, followed by Ryan Newman's last-second move on Kyle Larson at Phoenix that eliminated Gordon.
The 500 lap, 255-mile race was typical and then some by Martinsville standards. The eliminated Matt Kenseth (#20) was widely expected to exact payback on Contender round sweeper and this week's pole sitter Joey Logano (#22), who was accused of spinning Kenseth from the lead late at Kansas to win a second straight race. Kenseth and Logano also had a pit road run-in last week at Talladega. On Sunday, Kenseth bumped Logano out of the way about halfway through the race. On lap 453, after involvement in a crash, Kenseth, ten laps down, wrecked leader Logano heading into turn 1, dropping him from first to eighth on the Chase Grid. NASCAR parked Kenseth for his actions. Logano called out Kenseth during his television interview for complaining about Logano's racing at Kansas and Talladega and then getting revenge anyway. A little earlier, around lap 410, Logano's teammate Brad Keselowski (#2) had an altercation with Kurt Busch (#41), which Kenseth had gotten a piece of. Logano, Keselowski, Busch and Carl Edwards (#19) are on the bubble heading into next Sunday's race in Fort Worth, Texas. This leaves Kyle Busch (#18) as the possible lone Joe Gibbs championship contender at Homestead.
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