Jeff Gordon's title hopes likely became an afterthought following Martinsville as he finished 20th due in part to contact from Kurt Busch. Gordon started 11th and moved into the top-5 within 50 laps. He took the lead shortly before the halfway point by staying out during a caution period. He later slipped back to 3rd as Dale Earnhardt Jr took control of the event after the 300-lap mark. A caution flag on lap 347 brought the leaders to pit road. Gordon exited in 8th place after a problem on the left rear resulted in a 16.1 second pit stop. Gordon fell out of the top-10 on the restart and was unable to get to the inside line. He slipped to 14th on lap 370 before pulling in line in front of David Ragan. Ten laps later, Gordon dove to the inside of Kurt Busch in turn 3 and bumped his way around. Busch drilled Gordon on the frontstretch and turned him into the wall. The National Guard Chevrolet sustained heavy damage to the rear. The crew made repairs with Gordon losing a lap and restarting 22nd.

A caution for Travis Kvapil's spin with 100 laps to go allowed Gordon to get back on the lead lap. However, Gordon remained outside the top-20 as the laps wound down. He was lapped by race leader Kevin Harvick with 60 laps to go, which put the finishing touches on an ultra-disappointing day. Gordon went a second lap down with 8 to go when race winner Denny Hamlin went by and came across the line in 20th. He dropped to 5th in points and trails by 203. It was his worst finish at Martinsville since October 2002 -- eerily enough that was also the last time the San Francisco Giants were playing in the World Series. That is, before Brian Wilson struck out Ryan Howard on Saturday night.

JG post-race comments

TALKING ABOUT THE INCIDENT WITH KURT BUSCH
"We were racing hard. We got shuffled back on the pit stop before that. We ran him down quite a bit, we were quite a bit faster than him. I dove inside of him in turn three and I definitely over-shot it a little bit. Either he didn't know I was there or whatever and cut down on me and I got into him. Kurt Busch doesn't have a very long fuse so either it was pay-back or he just got angry really quick and decided to wreck us. We just did what we could do to come home with the best finish we could."

WHEN YOU GUYS GOT TOGETHER LATER, HOW DID THAT COME ABOUT?
"I don't know. I guess I didn't know he was on the outside of me."

TALK ABOUT WHAT THIS DOES TO YOUR CHAMPIONSHIP HOPES
"Our championship hopes have taken a big hit the last couple of weeks. So, for us, it's not about that right now, it about going out and getting the best finishes that we can and trying to win races. I felt like, at times, we had a car capable of winning today and that pit stop hurt us and we were back there battling our way back up there slowly but surely. And that incident, I gave him (Kurt Busch) a reason to get upset. So I wish I hadn't of done that. But, we were racing hard. And then what it does for us for the championship is really insignificant in my opinion. At this point we're just racing to try to get the best finishes and we'll continue to do that as we move forward."

DO YOU THINK YOU FIND YOURSELF TRYING SO HARD OUT THERE ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU THINK YOU HAVE A CAR CAPABLE OF GETTING BACK UP TO THE FRONT, THAT YOU'RE MAKING MOVES YOU NORMALLY WOULDN'T MAKE?
"No, that's a move I make all the time. You see it all day long. I probably made that one a little later than I probably would liked to have. I barely got into him but that's what my point is that I gave him enough of a reason to think that he should wreck me. So, that's just have at it boys, right? That's just racing; that's just part of it."

HE TOOK IT BACK A FEW YEARS. HE SAID IT DIDN'T MATTER IF HE WAS IN THE NO. 2 OR THE NO. 97 OR RUSTY WALLACE WAS IN THE NO. 2, HE SAID YOU'VE ALWAYS LIKE TO WRECK THAT CAR.
"Why does that not surprise me that he said that? (laughs). I think if we just let him talk, that's all that really needs to be said (laughter)."

HE BASICALLY SAID THAT YOU DID IT ON PURPOSE AND THOUGHT IT WAS A CHICKEN MOVE. THAT WAS HIS QUOTE, NOT MINE
"Like I said, if he just keeps making quotes, I don't need to say anything at all. I think if you look at the video it's pretty self-explanatory. I ran him down and was quite a bit faster than him. I said it here, more than once, that I probably made the move a little late. I was going to get into him. It wasn't much. But I gave him enough of a reason that whatever things he has from past history or whatever thoughts he has in there, it sparked it, you know? At that point, he was determined to wreck us."

JIMMIE JOHNSON NOW HAS A SIX POINT LEAD
"That's the exciting part of the championship right now. I wish it was a lot closer all the way back to fifth or sixth or seventh, or even all the way to 10th. But it just isn't. I thought Denny (Hamlin) did a great job today, but Jimmie did a great job too of coming home 5th. It's going to make Talladega very interesting."

Gordon started on the pole and opted for the outside line. He took off to a comfortable lead before a caution on lap 2 for Ryan Newman's crash slowed the field. On the lap 7 restart, Kyle Busch powered past Gordon on the outside line off turn 2. Gordon dropped to 3rd after Carl Edwards went by. Gordon re-assumed the runner-up spot from Edwards on lap 10. Gordon dropped to 3rd two laps later after Paul Menard passed. The second caution waved on lap 23 after Kurt Busch spun off turn 4. The leaders came to pit road and Gordon exited with the lead -- the benefit of having the first pit stall. Gordon lost the lead to Busch immediately after the restart as Gordon slipped to 3rd when Menard went by. Gordon fell to 4th before the next caution on lap 34 when Jimmie Johnson spun off turn 2.

Gordon moved up to 2nd on the restart by getting around Joey Logano in turn 2. He ran distantly behind Kyle Busch before a round of green flag pit stops on lap 77. A debris caution on lap 106 tightened the field as the leaders came to pit road. Gordon held the 2nd spot through the round of pit stops. He ran distantly behind Busch after the restart before a caution on lap 124 for Kasey Kahne and Sam Hornish's incident on the frontstretch slowed the field. Gordon came to pit road for fuel and restarted 7th on lap 130. He dropped to 8th when Denny Hamlin passed after a brief battle. Gordon took 7th from Clint Bowyer on lap 142. Gordon fell to 9th battling a loose handling car on lap 150. He came in for a green flag pit stop on lap 177. Track bar and air pressure adjustments followed and Gordon ran in 11th place after the pit cycle.

On lap 191, Gordon drifted up the track and lost power. He switched batteries but went a lap down as Jimmie Johnson went by. Gordon fell to 23rd, and was the first car a lap down. Marcos Ambrose's spin on lap 203 allowed Gordon to get back onto the lead lap. He came to pit road for a prolonged stop while the crew changed the battery. Gordon restarted 22nd as the last car on the lead lap. He struggled with handling before nearly going a lap down. On lap 239, Robby Gordon's spin brought the caution and allowed for adjustments on pit road. Gordon restarted in 17th place with 84 to go. However, he slipped to 22nd within two laps of the restart. He ran in 20th before a green flag stop with 40 laps to go. Gordon received a penalty for speeding on the entrance to pit road, and made a pass-through with 38 to go, which dropped him off the lead lap and essentially sealed his fate for the night. Gordon finished 23rd and dropped to 156 points behind Jimmie Johnson. With just five races left in the season, Gordon would likely need Johnson and Denny Hamlin to have at least two sub-par finishes to have a chance at a championship.

JG post-race comments

"It was not a lot of fun. We had about everything go wrong that could go wrong. Track position being crucial at this place. I've never seen it so sensitive. We lost a little bit of track position and then we had the battery issue which took me a little while to figure out. I've never had that happen before. I've had them stumble, but I've never had them just shut off. So, it took me a few seconds to figure that out. We lost a lap; and then speeding (on pit road) and a tire coming loose; we had it all happen."

WAS IT THE BATTERY OR THE ALTERNATOR?
"We had an alternator and then that drained the battery and then it shut off. Luckily we were running a second battery. That's the only thing that really saved us."

YOU ARE 156 POINTS BACK WITH FIVE RACES TO GO. HOW DO YOU LOOK AT THINGS RIGHT NOW?
"All I can tell you is that it doesn't make us race any different. We race to win every weekend. So that's all we can continue to do going forward. Things are not looking good, but we'll just keep going and get to the next one and see what happens."

JIMMIE JOHNSON SEEMS TO ALWAYS HAVE ALL SORTS OF PROBLEMS AND A LOT OF TIMES COMES OUT OF IT. HE HAD THE SPIN TONIGHT.
"Ah, that was just to get (crew chief) Chad Knaus to tighten the car up (laughter). Chad wasn't listening to him. He thought he needed to keep it loose and so Jimmie showed him how loose it really was and they tightened it up and he went to the front."

HOW CHALLENGING IT IS TO REMAIN COOL AND BOUNCE BACK AND HAVE THE ABILITY TO DO THAT?
"That's what great drivers and teams and championship caliber teams do. They amaze you at how they fight through problems and issues and those guys obviously have a great chemistry. They've won four championships and that's what's going to make them really tough this year again."

DO YOU FEEL THAT MOST OF YOUR PROBLEMS WERE PREVENTABLE?
"We've been trying to fix a loose middle-off the corner all year long here at Charlotte, so I don't feel like that was preventable. But certainly we can look into what caused the alternator problem and me speeding down pit road was preventable. At that point I didn't really feel like I had much to lose so I was pushing it anyway."

AFTER ALL THAT HAPPENED TONIGHT, DO YOU STILL HAVE THAT CONFIDENCE YOU TALKED ABOUT A COUPLE OF DAYS AGO?
"I'm looking forward to going to Martinsville. I think Martinsville is a great track for us. When we had track position tonight, I don't want to say we were as good as anybody, but we were good. I've never seen track position be so important as it was tonight because we just fell back to like sixth or seventh that one time after coming in and getting the gas-and-go and couldn't do anything. It was just so important to keep that track position."

WHY WAS IT SO MUCH DIFFERENT? WHY WAS TRACK POSITION SO VERY IMPORTANT?
"I don't know. The tires were real edgy. The track was cool and fast; aerodynamics; and I mean it's just a combination of those things. The tires don't really give up much and the track is so smooth that it doesn’t really make the tires wear. And so you can stay out on tires, you can do two tires, and they just don't slow down much."

DOES DENNY HAMLIN HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN THE CHAMPIONSHIP?
"Yeah, they're going to be tough in Martinsville. He runs good a lot of places so I feel like tonight kind of showed who the real players are and I think that that was a plus on their part because they really recovered and didn't really lose as many points as they could have, and now they go to one of their best tracks, if not their best track."

Gordon started 17th and picked up two positions on the opening lap. He continued slicing through traffic and moved into the top-10 on lap 5. He passed Mark Martin for 9th place on lap 7. On lap 10, he passed Greg Biffle and Juan Pablo Montoya to take over 7th place. Gordon moved into the top-5 on lap 15 by getting around Kasey Kahne. However, debris on the grilled forced him to let Clint Bowyer go by so he could tuck in behind to get the debris off. He moved back into the top-5 on lap 35 after getting around Elliott Sadler. Gordon came to pit road for a green flag pit stop on lap 38. He ran in 4th after stops cycled through the field. The first caution waved on lap 40 for Biffle's blown engine.

Gordon restarted 4th and took the lead from Matt Kenseth off turn four. However, Jimmie Johnson powered past one lap later. On lap 49, he dropped to 5th after running up the track in turn four. He took 4th from Kenseth on lap 53 before the second caution for Marcos Ambrose's cut tire. The lead lap cars came to pit road with Gordon holding 4th place. He moved to 3rd after the restart. One lap later, the caution waved for Carl Edwards stopping on the track. Gordon took the runner-up spot from Kyle Busch on lap 65, but dropped to 3rd on lap 68 when Mark Martin went by. Green flag pit stops cycled through the field on lap 97 with Gordon running 3rd. On lap 104, Gordon ducked low and took 2nd from Johnson. A debris caution on lap 113 allowed Gordon to erase Martin's 5-second lead. Gordon's crew sent him back onto the track with the lead.

Gordon chose the outside line for the restart on lap 118. He paced the field until Bowyer took the lead on lap 125. One lap later Mark Martin passed Gordon for position. On lap 130, Tony Stewart took 3rd from Gordon as he battled loose handling issues. Denny Hamlin sent Gordon back to 5th with 65 laps to go. A caution for Ambrose's spin with 64 to go brought the leaders to pit road and allowed Gordon's team to make chassis adjustments. Gordon gained two spots on pit road and restarted 2nd with 60 to go. The inside line hindered Gordon as he dropped to 4th behind Stewart, Bowyer, and Ryan Newman. With 50 to go, Martin and Kasey Kahne passed Gordon sending him back to 6th. Gordon faded to 8th with 46 to go before a caution for Kyle Busch's blown engine. The leaders came to pit road with Gordon departing in 11th place. However, he received a penalty for speeding entering pit road and restarted at the tail end of the lead lap. "I'm sorry about that guys, I knew I was on the edge but I didn't think I'd be over," Gordon radioed to his crew.

He restarted in 30th with 41 to go and began making his way through traffic. With 39 to go, he ran in 25th. A debris caution with 18 laps to go brought the lead lap cars to pit road. Gordon restarted in 25th and gained 10 spots in 10 laps to run 15th. With 7 laps to go, David Ragan and Kurt Busch wrecked on the frontstretch to bring out the caution. Gordon ran in 13th place at the caution flag. Gordon opted to come to pit road for two tires. Gordon restarted 12th for the green/white/checkered finish. He passed three cars and finished 9th. At the front of the field, Stewart held off Bowyer and Johnson to take the victory. Gordon moved to 4th in the standings, but trails Johnson by 85 points.

JG post-race comments

"It wasn't the kind of day we were hoping for. Thinks are going pretty well for us and we're hanging in there but honestly I think we were anywhere from a third to a fifth-place car, so to come home ninth, there's no doubt, we need to get better. There's no doubt. We've got to get better."

WHEN THAT RED LIGHT GOES ON, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?
"The red light I was fine with. We have some leeway in the system. Two red lights, and I would have been letting off. One red light, I do it all the time. Usually the way we have it is if it flashes two, then you've got to back off. But at one, you're fine. We were just obviously too tight in the tolerances and I pushed it too far."

YOU HAD A STRONG CHARGE THERE
"Yeah, I got through (Turns) 1 and 2 there on that last restart and there were guys who not come in and we took two (tires) and I just went to the top side but I had the No. 19 (Elliott Sadler) coming on the outside and the car stuck; I got in the gas and drove around some guys and just stuffed it in a hole that I really didn't even think was there and we were all playing bumper cars down the back straightaway. It was pretty crazy. I kept hearing four or five wide and I just stayed in it. When we got into (Turn) 3 they spread out and gave me a hole and I had the better tires and I just shot right through there."

Gordon started 3rd and moved to the runner-up spot at the outset. He ran down and took the lead from Kasey Kahne at the 30-lap mark. Gordon held the top spot through a round of caution flag pit stops, before losing the lead to Matt Kenseth on lap 63. Tony Stewart then got around Gordon to send him back to 3rd on lap 67. He fell to 4th on lap 78 after Greg Biffle passed. Gordon came in for a green flag pit stop on lap 98, which included a chassis adjustment. Gordon dropped to 7th when the stops cycled through the field.

The adjustments seemed to help Gordon as he moved to 6th on lap 118. He remained there until a cycle of green flag pit stops on lap 148. A caution for David Reutiman's spin brought the leaders to pit road. Gordon opted for two tires and restarted in 7th place on lap 160. Gordon got loose on the inside of Ryan Newman on lap 162, which halted his forward momentum and sent him to 8th place. Kasey Kahne's cut tire and shredded fender brought out the caution on lap 166. A miscommunication between Gordon and crew chief Steve Letarte resulted in Gordon staying on the track. On the restart, Gordon fell out of the top-10 while battling on older tires. A caution for Kevin Conway's blown engine slowed the field and allowed Gordon to come to pit road for fresh tires.

Gordon restarted in 14th with 75 laps to go. He moved into the top-10 within two laps of the restart. However, Kurt Busch took 10th from Gordon with 70 to go. Gordon ran side-by-side with Denny Hamlin for 4 laps, before re-taking the 10th spot from Busch. With 50 to go, he moved to 9th and challenged Newman for the 8th position. Gordon made his final green flag stop with 31 laps to go. Gordon cycled through the stops in 6th place after a 12.4 second pit stop. He passed Matt Kenseth for 5th with 18 to go and held off Carl Edwards in the closing stages to post his first top-5 finish since Chicagoland Speedway in July.

JG post-race comments

"This track has been good to us. We were hoping for a little bit more than that with the way things went all weekend long. The way the race started, was pretty optimistic but we were just missing a little bit there. We lost some track position. I just give a lot of credit to this DuPont Chevrolet team there at the end. Great pit stops. Good adjustments that brought us back up in the top-five so that was a great finish."

HOW MUCH DID THIS TRACK CHANGE?
"Quite a bit. We were pretty good there those first two runs. Then Tony (Stewart) and (Matt) Kenseth and a couple of other guys got up there and they were really getting a hold of the race track good and our car just seemed to fall off a little bit. We got real loose and had to tighten it back up there at the end."

IT WAS AN EVENTFUL DAY. WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR CAR THREE-QUARTERS OF THE WAY THROUGH THE RACE?
"Yeah, we started the race good but we were real loose out front. And when some of the faster cars got up there we could see where we were off. We fell back and lost some track position but I've got to give (crew chief) Steve (Letarte) and the DuPont Chevrolet team a lot of credit. We had a great pit stop there at the end to make up a bunch of spots under green, and some good adjustments to make the car a lot better. We finally got it tightened up enough and we could race with those guys and pull off a top five."

SOME GREAT RACE TRACKS COMING UP FOR YOU, WHAT ARE YOUR IMPRESSIONS RIGHT NOW OF THE CHASE AND WHERE YOU SIT AS A TEAM?
"I'm happy we gained. We gained points overall and points positions. That's good. I felt like we kind of missed an opportunity here this weekend. I felt like we were one of the best cars and felt like we should have led more laps and had a battle for the win. We still have some work to do and we're going to try to make that happen with the tracks coming up. They are good tracks for us. But they're good tracks for our competitors too. It was a good day today. I just felt like we could have been better and we're going to have to do that in the races coming up."