Race day is partly cloudy and cool in Martinsville. Dale Jr. is back so Jr. Nation is thrilled. Jimmie has qualified on the pole and Bradley K has qualified 32nd. Denny qualified somewhere in the top ten, around sixth I think.
Caution on lap 45. Stremme loses a right tire and hits the wall.
Denny Hamlin is popped for speeding on pit road. Denny came off pit road third and has to restart thirtieth.
Jeff Gordon takes over the lead on lap 72. All four Hendrick Motorsports cars are in the top eight at lasp 75 of 500.
Caution on lap 98. David Gilliland loses a right front tire and kisses the wall.
On lap 106 Jeff Gordon goes for the pass for the lead and crowds Jimmie putting him up in the outside lane and resulting in a pass on the next turn and allowing KyBu and Brian Vickers (55) to all pass him before Jimmie bogarted his way back in line after a bit of contact with Vickers and a tap in the back of the 55 to express his displeasure. The crew is trying to calm him down now.
Caution on lap 126. Travis Kvapil went for a spin. Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. stay out.
Caution on lap 150. KyBu spins.
Caution on lap 199. Marcos Ambrose spins. Jimmie is having intermittent trouble hearing Earl on the radio. Jimmie is switching to radio 2 since he can hear Chad without a problem, but he can’t hear Earl. After the switch he can hear Earl. Denny got busted for speeding entering pit road again, so though he won the race off pit road, he restarts in 28th position.
Caution on lap 210. Marcos Ambrose spinning as his left rear tire goes down as a result of contact with the tail pipe of the 51 (AJ Allmendinger).
Caution on lap 224. Kurt Busch goes around. Harvick drove into Kurt’s left rear.
At some point over the past couple weeks apparently Stewart Haas Racing has performed a team switch with the 39 and Danica’s card, so Newman has had a different crew chief the past couple weeks. Tony Gibson will be Danica’s crew chief next season and the change started on October 19thh. Matt Borland, VP of Competition at SHR is going to serve as Newman’s crew chief for now. Martin Truex has a pass through penalty for changing lanes before the start-finish line on the restart.
Jeff Gordon has mentioned a potential valve train concern though it doesn’t seem to be affecting him at this time.
Jimmie lost everybody on the radio around lap 329. He’s got them back for now. Chad had Ron preparing a sign when he realized Jimmie couldn’t hear anyone. Lap 338 Jimmie is switching back to radio 1 because he’s still having trouble hearing Earl.
At lap352 leader Clint Bowyer stalls his car a little on pit road. Jimmie wants to know why Jeff Gordon is leaning on him so hard.
At lap 382 Denny is very slow on the track. He says the gauges are going nuts and it cut off. He got it re-fired, but he’s very slow again. He says the gauges are flashing every color really fast right now. It is cutting off again on lap 387. Hamlin is being warned by NASCAR that he’s not running the minimum speed. Caution is out at lap 392 for Denny stopped on the track.
Lead change on the pit lane as the 48 crew gets Jimmie out first.
The 29 might be down a cylinder with 88 laps to go. He says its going to blow up with 78 to go. Denny is heading back toward the track. They say the master switch had a short in it.
On lap 435 Casey Mears hit the right front wheel hard as Jimmie tried to pass him.
Jimmie hit Juan Pablo Montoya on lap 438 as he was trying to pass and JPM was trying to pass the car on his outside the 93. Jimmie’s right front wheel was hit for the second time. JPM went for a spin. The 93 tried to stop before hitting him, but slid into him and gave him a tap on his drivers door.
Chad said everything is fine. It hit the sidewall a little bit, but the suspension is fine. He said it would’ve had to be wheel-to-wheel to mess up the suspension. Jimmie said it knocked the wheel out of his hand everytime.
Caution lap 471 for oil at the start-finish line. The 29’s engine let go spewing the oil. Chad says they have to pit. 18 cars on the lead lap. Keselowski and Dale Jr stayed out.
Caution is out on 490. Hornish in the 22 hit Carl Edwards (99) in the rear spinning Carl into Dale Jr who also spun.
Five to go on the restart. KyBu is working Jimmie over pretty hard.
JIMMIE JOHNSON WINS!!!