MARTINSVILLE, Va. (AP) – Jeff Gordon made a winning decision at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday.

The four-time Winston Cup champion was leading the Subway 500 with the laps winding down and Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s car looming in his rearview mirror.

The key moment came under caution on the 405th of 500 laps on the half-mile oval when Earnhardt chose to dive onto pit road for fresh tires.

None of the leaders needed any more gas to get to the end, but Gordon said he too was thinking about pitting for tires. Robbie Loomis, his crew chief, told Gordon to come in if Earnhardt did.

“Robbie kind of left it in my hands,” Gordon said. “He said, “Watch those guys behind you, especially Junior. You’ve only got 23 laps on the tires.’

“Junior went in and I looked at my mirror and saw there weren’t that many other guys that were coming (in) and I said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t do it with not that many guys coming.’

“Robbie said, “All right, now it’s all up to you. You’ve got to take those tires all the way to the end. You’ve got plenty of fuel.’ I just tried to be as smooth as I could and keep after them.”

Tony Eury, Earnhardt’s crew chief, said his driver really had no choice but to pit.

“He had a set of tires there we didn’t like and they were getting worse and worse,” Eury explained. “He wasn’t going to win the race with those tires.”

Earnhardt, who fell to 12th after the pit stop, charged hard the rest of the way but got only to fourth place. He had a particularly hard time getting past Ryan Newman in a battle for fourth, finally taking the position from last year’s top rookie on lap 478.

“I knew (Earnhardt) was going to have his hands full,” Gordon said. “Ryan worked him over pretty good.”

Gordon did get a brief challenge from Hendrick Motorsports teammate and protege Jimmie Johnson after that, but it was really no contest as

the winner overpowered the field.

The victory in the caution-filled race was the 63rd win of Gordon’s career but only his second of the season. The four-time series champion led 313 laps as he completed a two-race, season sweep on the half-mile oval.

“This baby just needed to be out front in clean air and it was a rocket ship,” Gordon said. “It’s awesome to be back in Victory Lane.”

Johnson, who started 26th and fell deeper into the field when he spun early in the race, came back strong to finish 1.036 seconds – about five car-lengths – behind Gordon’s. No. 24 Chevrolet.

It was a typical short track race, with enough bumping and banging to produce 15 caution flags with a record 117 laps run under yellow.

As he did in his victory here in April, Gordon started from the pole, dominated early, struggled for a while, then came back even stronger.

Gordon, who has five victories at Martinsville, led the final 205 laps, easily pulling away on each of a series of restarts and staying out of trouble on the narrow track.

After a terrible July and August during which he had only two finishes better than 19th in a nine-race stretch, Gordon came into Sunday’s race with five consecutive fifth-place finishes.

Tony Stewart, coming off a victory eight days earlier in Charlotte, finished third, just ahead of Earnhardt.

Series leader Matt Kenseth, who came into the race with a 267-point margin over Kevin Harvick and 324 over Earnhardt, finished 13th and saw his lead over Harvick cut to 240 points with four races remaining.

“We knew this (race) was our weakest point coming up the rest of the year,” the relieved Kenseth said. “Two out of the last four tracks we have coming up we’ve won at … so I’m feeling good and ready to go.”

Earnhardt remained third, but chopped his margin to 283 going into the Oct. 26 race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

There was plenty of bent sheet metal and hurt feelings Sunday, but there were no serious accidents and no injuries reported.

“This place is fun when you’ve got a really good handling car,” Kenseth said. “When you’re off a little bit, it’s a handful.”

AP-ES-10-19-03 1935EDT