Jeff Gordon has secured his chance to race for a final NASCAR championship by capturing the win in his last Martinsville Speedway in the Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500.

Sunday, November 1st was a rainy, overcast day at Martinsville Speedway which resulted in NASCAR starting the Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 under the green and yellow flag simultaneously. The officials wanted to start logging laps as they finished drying the track and pit lane because there was a chance that more rain could hit the track before the entire 500 laps in the race could be run. After seven laps, the green flag was waived to get the cars up to full speed and short track racing at Martinsville was on.

The race would go green for the next 45 laps before a competition caution was issued by NASCAR to allow the teams to see how their cars and tires were handling the surface that had been washed clean of any rubber by the rains. After that, there would be some long green flag periods, but there would also be some issues of losing control of cars and tempers.

Joey Logano looked as though he would make a serious bid to capture his fourth win in a row as he led a race high 207 laps of the race. However, Matt Kenseth would change that when his car hit the side of Joey’s pushing it into the outside wall and ending both of the drivers’ day. Most believe this was payback for Joey spinning out Matt in Kansas at the end of the race when Matt was leading and allowing Joey to take the win. Matt said in a post-incident interview that he had a tire go down which caused the accident. You can see the incident in the video above and make your own assessment.

That crash allowed Jeff Gordon to get to work moving past the #11 car and the #47 car in the final segment of the race to lead the last 22 laps and capture his ninth win at Martinsville in is last race at the track in his final full-time Sprint Cup season. What is even bigger for Jeff and the #24 team is that the win gives them an automatic advance to the Championship Race at Homestead as one of the four cars that can win the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship.

Jamie McMurray grabbed the second place finish with Denny Hamlin coming across the finish line in third place. Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished in fourth place with Kyle Busch rounding out the top five. See the complete race results for the Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 here.

Being the first race in the Eliminator Round the win puts Jeff Gordon at the top of the point standings. After the race at Martinsville Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. are nine points above the cutoff line for the final race/round of the Chase Grid and Kevin Harvick is seven points above that line. With two races to go before the eight Chase Grid drivers are cut to four Carl Edwards is seven points below that cutoff line, Brad Keselowski has 24 points to make up to get above the line, Kurt Busch needs 26 points to get above the line and Joey Logano now has a 28 point deficit to overcome to advance. See the complete NASCAR Sprint Cup point standings after Martinsville here.

The Chase Grid drivers and all of the other NASCAR Sprint Cup teams will head to Texas Motor Speedway Sunday, November 8th for the AA Texas 500. The question is will some of the Martinsville tempers boil over to Texas?

By: Buck Stevens