WINSTON CUP Gordon strong in 2nd victory

Jeff Gordon swept the races at Martinsville this year.
MARTINSVILLE, Va. (AP) -- Jeff Gordon could easily visualize the moment last April when he bumped aside Bobby Labonte with 13 laps to go to win at Martinsville Speedway.
As the laps wound down Sunday in the Subway 500, Gordon watched teammate and prot & eacute;g & eacute; Jimmie Johnson looming in his rearview mirror.
"I knew he'd do what it takes to beat me," Gordon said. "I was working real hard to keep some room between us there at the end in traffic. I just wanted to make sure he didn't get the opportunity."
Johnson, who started 26th and fell back after an early race spin, never quite caught Gordon, finishing about five car lengths behind the No. 24 Chevrolet.
"I wouldn't have wrecked him, but I wish I could have gotten inside him and put on a good show and ended up the winner," Johnson said, wistfully.
Dominant all day
Gordon dominated the 500-lap race, leading 313 laps on the way to sweeping the two Winston Cup events this season on the half-mile oval.
He has 63 career wins, but only those two this season.
The key moment in this one came late in the race when Gordon was forced to make a split-second decision.
Gordon was out front with Dale Earnhardt Jr. -- in the next best car through most of the race -- stalking him when the 14th of 15 caution flags came out on lap 404.
As the leaders came slowly around behind the pace car on the next lap, Earnhardt's No. 8 Chevy made the sudden left turn onto pit lane to get fresh tires.
None of the leaders needed gas to get to the end, but Gordon said he too was thinking about pitting for tires. Robbie Loomis, his crew chief, told Gordon to come in if Earnhardt did.
"Robbie kind of left it in my hands," Gordon said. "He said, 'Watch those guys behind you, especially Junior. You've only got 23 laps on the tires.'
"Junior went in and I looked at my mirror and saw there weren't that many other guys that were coming [in] and I said, 'I'm sorry, but I can't do it with not that many guys coming.'
"Robbie said, 'All right, now it's all up to you. You've got to take those tires all the way to the end. You've got plenty of fuel.' I just tried to be as smooth as I could and keep after them."
No choice
Tony Eury, Earnhardt's crew chief, said his driver really had no choice.
"He had a set of tires there we didn't like and they were getting worse and worse," Eury explained. "He wasn't going to win the race with those tires."
Earnhardt fell to 12th after the pit stop. He charged hard the rest of the way but got back only to fourth place.
Junior had a particularly hard time getting past Ryan Newman in a good battle for fourth, finally taking the position from last year's top rookie on lap 478.
"I knew [Earnhardt] was going to have his hands full," Gordon said. "Ryan worked him over pretty good."
Gordon was in control the rest of the way.
It was a typical short track race, with plenty of bumping and banging that produced 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.