NASCAR Martinsville Speedway: Tony Stewart Makes Late Pass To Beat Jimmie Johnson

There were a lot of wrecked race cars at the end of Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race, but perhaps none more than Brian Vickers’ No. 83 Red Bull Toyota.

Involved in at least five of the 18 cautions, Vickers caught flak from a host of drivers, including Matt Kenseth, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Jamie McMurray.

Carl Edwards had one of those days where championships are made.

Edwards, who was in 23rd place and one lap down with 100 laps remaining in Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway, mounted an unlikely rally to finish ninth and retain the Chase points lead.

Kevin Harvick may have won the spring race at Martinsville, but the Richard Childress Racing driver stayed relatively quiet Sunday afternoon and ended the day with a solid fourth-place finish.

Surviving the hard-fought battle, Harvick gained ground on the championship lead, moving within 21 points of Carl Edwards to third in the Chase standings.

Jimmie Johnson and Brian Vickers are good buddies, and a little disagreement at Martinsville Speedway won’t change that.

But Johnson certainly wasn’t happy with Vickers’ late attempt at retaliation on Matt Kenseth, which resulted in a caution and ultimately cost Johnson a win.

Brad Keselowski appeared to be on a championship run late in Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway.

Struggling for much of the race and running in the back of the pack, Keselowski and crew chief Paul Wolfe continually worked on the car, gaining track position as the closing laps approached.

Midway through Sunday’s race at Martinsville Speedway, it would have been tough to envision Carl Edwards leaving the Virginia short track with the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points lead.

After all, Edwards was the lowest-running Chase car at the time and Matt Kenseth (second in points entering the race) was fifth.

For the first half of Sunday’s race at Martinsville, it appeared as if Matt Kenseth was going to gain ground in the championship battle on his Roush Fenway Racing teammate Carl Edwards, who was struggling at the back of the pack.

But as the race moved into the closing stages, Kenseth’s car began to slip. And then he found Brian Vickers.

Following what appeared to be his most aggressive and wild race in recent memory, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was just as animated after getting out of the car as he had been moments earlier on the track during a seventh-place finish at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday.

“That right there was basically, ‘Hey, the season is running down, we’re not gonna be racing much longer and I’m going to miss it,’” he said. “So I came to the buffet and got everything I could eat today!”

Last weekend’s race at Talladega was billed as the wild card race of the Chase, but Sunday’s race at Martinsville Speedway saw more twists and turns in the Chase standings than anyone could have predicted.

In a race littered with cautions from start to finish, Tony Stewart rebounded from struggles throughout the race to top Jimmie Johnson on the final restart to score his third win of the 2011 Chase.

Although Mother Nature had her way with practice and qualifying the race on Sunday will not have to worry about the weather. The only problem some may have will be with the chilly temperatures. Then again it is almost November.

We will start the morning with temperatures in the low 30s, expect frost on many of the Halloween pumpkins. At least the race wasn’t held at Pocono or New Hampshire this weekend. Instead of jet driers they would also need snow plows as many across the north east dig out from a foot to two feet in some locations.

It’s NASCAR race day at Martinsville Speedway, and we’ve got the actual race start time, the starting lineup and some other facts about today’s Chase race for you below.

What time does the race start today? The Martinsville start time is a bit earlier than most Chase races because there are no lights and officials want to make sure the race has plenty of time to finish. The command to start engines will be given by a Tums contest winner at 1:53 p.m. Eastern time. The green flag will then wave at 1:58 p.m. Eastern. So if you want to tune in for the actual race itself and skip the pre-race show, just tune in at 1:58.

From team orders at Talladega to Michael Waltrip Racing’s illegal windshields to Chad Knaus instructing Jimmie Johnson to intentionally damage his car, it’s been a rough week for NASCAR in terms of politics and ethical concerns.

But it’s not fair to lump all competitors into one group, Brad Keselowski said Friday at Martinsville Speedway. In fact, the driver said his Penske Racing team is willing to sacrifice some potential performance advantages in the name of rule-following.

Presidential hopeful Herman Cain might have made a recent stop in Talladega, Ala., but that was not the only politicking going on around those parts in recent days.

Last weekend’s Sprint Cup Series race saw more politics than perhaps ever before as drivers, teams and manufacturers jockeyed for drafting partners throughout the weekend.

Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth would like to high-five Mother Nature.

The Roush Fenway Racing teammates, neither known for having much success at Martinsville Speedway, will start on the front row for Sunday’s crucial NASCAR Chase race thanks to persistent rain which canceled qualifying.

The weather forecast for Martinsville Speedway slowly improves through the day Saturday. Rain is still likely through the morning and threatens the Sprint Cup practice scheduled for 8:30 a.m. As Jeff pointed out in his revised Martinsville schedule:

Rain and drizzle should begin to decrease between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m., and by the afternoon, skies will become partly sunny as the storm system moves to the northeast and high pressure builds in across the southeast.

Last weekend’s race at Talladega Superspeedway was atypical for Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Earnhardt Jr. was committed to working with teammate Jimmie Johnson in a tandem from the beginning of the race, with the game plan to ride around the back of the pack and stay out of trouble.

The NASCAR Martinsville Speedway weekend schedule has been revised after weather canceled all on-track activity for the Sprint Cup Series on Friday.

Cold drizzle and showers hung around the track all day, and the Camping World Truck Series were the only vehicles aside from the jet dryers to make it onto the half-mile oval on Friday.

Carl Edwards is well-read and knowledgeable about a variety of topics, able to speak intelligently on subjects from economics to physical fitness.

The former substitute teacher is sharp enough to act as his own agent in negotiations and hold his own in nearly any non-racing setting.

Denny Hamlin may have called for long-term changes to the way Joe Gibbs Racing builds chassis on Friday at Martinsville Speedway, but teammate Kyle Busch does not feel the same way.

“I don’t see those issues,” Busch said. “Denny sometimes feels things in the car that I don’t feel, or if I do feel them I drive through them.”

Pressure from NASCAR’s Chase for the Sprint Cup? Matt Kenseth doesn’t seem to be feeling any at all.

At least that’s what we gathered from his lighthearted, joking mood when he came into the Martinsville Speedway media center on Friday morning – a mood he attributed to drinking “too much coffee.”

Typically, Jimmie Johnson is talking about his championship run at this point of the season.

Instead, Johnson was busy Friday answering questions about a suspect comment by crew chief Chad Knaus prior to last weekend’s race at Talladega Superspeedway.

The 2011 Chase for the Sprint Cup moves on from the high banks of Talladega Superspeedway to the flat, half-mile Martinsville Speedway for this weekend’s Tums Fast Relief 500.

The championship picture grew a bit more narrow after last weekend’s race, with six drivers vying for the title with four races left in the season. Jimmie Johnson still has a mathematical shot at rejoining the championship battle, but will have to put poor finishes and recent controversies behind him to do so.

There’s been a lot of talk on social media about a weekend storm that moves up the East Coast, bringing accumulating snow from Washington D.C. and Philadelphia into parts of New England. It’s hard to say how much snow will fall in these places, but if you are traveling to the race from any of these areas, you may want to get a head start to Martinsville.

The only weather concern for Martinsville Speedway this weekend is on Friday and possibly Saturday morning in the form of rain. The storm system will move out of Georgia on Friday night along a stalled boundary just off the coast of Virginia. This system will spread rain Friday night into Saturday morning with the possibility of some snow mixing with the rain in the mountains to the west and north.

The NASCAR-related tributes to Breast Cancer Awareness Month seem to increase every year, and this season has been no different.

In addition to all the various pink paint schemes on race cars in October, Charlotte Motor Speedway painted its start/finish line pink for last week’s NASCAR races – and now Martinsville Speedway is doing something special, too (and it has nothing to do with the track’s famous pink hot dogs).