Newman and Gordon exchanged opinions on pit road after the event but while Newman remains winless in 2007 Gordon's rock solid performance has gone a long way towards eliminating everyone bar Johnson in the overall championship picture with Clint Bowyer, the only other driver who came into the race within 100 points of the championship lead, only able to produce a ninth place finish.
The third member of Sunday's Hendrick trifecta, outgoing driver Kyle Busch, finished fourth after passing Matt Kenseth on the final restart with Denny Hamlin rounding out the top six despite sustaining front end damage when he got involved in one of numerous collisions seen in the race.
Greg Biffle continued his strong late season surge with a seventh place result while Juan Montoya put in one of his most accomplished performances on a short track thus far as he took eighth place. Bowyer's ninth place finish means he slips 115 points behind Gordon in the points table but still holds on to third place overall while Kevin Harvick rounded out the top ten.
Jeff Burton, Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart just missed out on the top ten and came home 11th, 12th and 13th respectively with Edwards and Stewart escaping a late race accident in which they ran into each other trying to avoid Kyle Petty's spinning car.
Martin Truex Jr was involved in four of the last eight caution periods but still finished 19th while the only Chase driver to really strike trouble was Kurt Busch who blew a tyre, smacked the wall and finished five laps down in 31st.
Of the other major players Dale Earnhardt Jr led for a while and was running strongly in the top five when his engine failed on the penultimate lap and dropped him to 23rd while neither Ricky Rudd (27th) nor Dale Jarrett (30th) enjoyed rich pickings in their final appearance at Martinsville after being involved in some of the numerous yellow-flag inducing incidents.
![Jimmie Johnson (#48) races Kurt Busch (#2) in the NASCAR's ever Car of Tomorrow event [pic credit: image.net]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/303479.jpg)
