Kenseth is latest leader

The smallest track on the tour yielded the biggest race thus far in the Chase for the Nextel Cup.

NASCAR’s playoffs were turned topsy-turvy Sunday during the Subway 500 at little .526-mile Martinsville Speedway.

Jeff Burton fell out early because of a blown engine and plummeted from first to fifth in the Chase standings, and all nine of the other drivers gained points on him.

Jimmie Johnson won the race and rocketed from seventh to third in the standings, only 41 points behind new leader Matt Kenseth, who got to the top with yet another mediocre run, finishing 11th.

Denny Hamlin, trying to become the first rookie to win NASCAR’s championship, almost slammed his way past Johnson near the end Sunday but settled for second, moving up two spots to fourth in the Chase.

“It’s been sloppy so far,” Kenseth said of the Chase, and his finishes in the first six races back him up: 10th, 10th, 23rd, fourth, 14th and 11th. Other than the fourth-place finish at Talladega, Ala., two weeks ago, “we haven’t looked like a championship team.”

Kevin Harvick moved up to second, 36 points behind Kenseth, with a ninth-place finish.

Jeff Gordon, who’d counted himself out of the running for a fifth championship just last week after a blown engine at Charlotte, N.C., finished fifth Sunday and leapt from 216 points behind Burton to 141 behind Kenseth -- a margin that could be erased in a single race, with four left in the Chase.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. came to the brink of moving into second place in the standings, but while making the move that would have put him there -- an attempted pass of Kasey Kahne -- Earnhardt spun out, finished 22nd and fell to sixth. But Earnhardt is only 94 points behind Kenseth.

Even Kyle Busch, who finished 18th and fell to 10th, is only 171 points out of the lead, with 190 attainable for winning a race and leading the most laps.

Hamlin had the most amazing performance of the day when, with his Chevrolet running on only seven cylinders, he got into a fender-banging duel with Johnson for the lead on a restart with six laps remaining.

Hamlin rammed Johnson in the rear bumper -- an acceptable tactic on short tracks -- and moved him up the track for a moment. Hamlin then drove to the inside and made it a side-by-side duel until Johnson’s much-stronger Chevy moved back out front with four laps left.

“Being the leader, I knew -- having been here in the past, and in short-track racing in general -- that I was going to get the bumper at some point,” Johnson said.

But Johnson didn’t fault Hamlin in the least.

“If I’d been in that position I’d have done the same thing -- take one shot, try to loosen the guy up and get by him,” Johnson said. “He went to the line and didn’t cross it, and I respect him for it.”

Burton had gone into this race somewhat warily -- Martinsville hasn’t been a particularly good track for him in recent years -- and the other Chase contenders had sensed opportunity.

“Everybody has had an issue in this Chase, and we had ours today,” said Burton, who wound up 42nd in the 43-car field and is 48 points behind Kenseth. “This thing is not over for us by any means. Just a bad day for us, but we won’t quit. I guarantee that.”

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Ed Hinton covers auto racing for Tribune newspapers.