By Ryan - Posted on November 1, 2011

Tony Stewart, who had a pretty quiet season by his standards, has now gone from “making a little noise” in the Chase to second place in the standings – and closing. He used a restart with three laps left to pass Jimmie Johnson for the lead, and hold him off for the win at Martinsville on Sunday. The victory moved him into second place in the Chase standings, eight points back, with three races to go.

Martinsville proved to be a typical short-track race, with 18 cautions – only three short of the track record.  Stewart even brought his car in under a caution on lap 416, thinking he had a tire going down after contact on a restart three laps earlier. When the field went back to racing, he was mired back in 21st place, but took two tires on a later caution, which put him in fifth spot when the field took the green flag on lap 463.

Jeff Gordon, who called the racing at Martinsville “crazy”,  finished third in the race, Kevin Harvick was fourth, and Denny Hamlin finished fifth. Rounding out the top ten were Jeff Burton, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Martin Truex, Carl Edwards, and Ryan Newman.

Edwards fought his car all day, being lapped twice. However, he used the “lucky dog” pass to pull out an unlikely top ten finish. The drivers who had the worst luck, however, were Matt Kenseth and Brad Keselowski. After starting the race second and third in the points standings, they were involved in late-lap crashes. Keselowski finished 17th and Kenseth ended 31st.

Stewart seems to relish the role of chasing the drivers in front of him in the points, and Carl Edwards is the only one there now. “He’d better be worried. That’s all I can say. He’s not going to have an easy three weeks.”

All fans are ready to see what happens in those three weeks. Momentum is definitely on the side of Tony Stewart right now, but Carl Edwards has the best record on the remaining tracks. On those tracks – Texas, Phoenix, and Homestead – Edwards has six wins and Stewart has four.