Racebeat (10/19/03)
by Rich Romer

MARTINSVILLE, VA--NASCAR Winston Cup: Jeff Gordon overpowered the rest of the field, completing a season sweep of the two NASCAR Winston Cup races at Martinsville Speedway. The victory in the caution-filled Subway 500 was the 63rd win of Gordon's career but only his second of the season. The four-time series champion led 311 of the 500 laps on the half-mile oval. Jimmie Johnson, Gordon's protege and Hendrick Motorsports teammate, started 26th and lost more ground when he spun out early in the race, but came back to finish second.

It was a typical short track race, with plenty of bumping and banging that produced 15 caution flags and a record 117 laps run under yellow. As he did in his victory here in April, Gordon started from the pole, dominated early, struggled for a while, then came back even stronger. Gordon, who now owns five victories at Martsinville, led the final 205 laps, easily pulling away on each of a series of restarts and staying out of trouble on the narrow track. After a terrible July and August during which he had only two finishes better than 19th in a nine-race stretch, Gordon came into Sunday's race with five consecutive fifth-place finishes. Johnson trailed Gordon's No. 24 Chevrolet across the finish line by 1.036-seconds -- about 5 car-lengths.

Tony Stewart, coming off a victory eight days earlier in Charlotte, finished third, just ahead of Dale Earnhardt Jr., who appeared to have the second best car through most of the race. The key moment of the day came on lap 405 under caution when Earnhardt, running a close second to Gordon and applying plenty of pressure on the leader, pitted for tires. None of the leaders needed any more gas to get to the end, but Gordon said he too was thinking about pitting for fresh tires. Robbie Loomis, Gordon's crew chief, told him to come in if Earnhardt did. Series leader Matt Kenseth, who came into the race with a 267-point margin over Kevin Harvick and 324 over Earnhardt, finished 13th and saw his lead over Harvick cut to 240 points with four races remaining. Earnhardt remained third, but chopped his margin to 283 going into the Oct. 26 race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. There was plenty of bent sheet metal and hurt feelings Sunday, but there were no serious accidents and no injuries reported.