Martin, Gordon left to wonder if they did enough

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon split the difference on an unexpected chance to get back into the 2009 Chase on Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway, with Martin cutting point leader Jimmie Johnson's margin more than in half.

Their Hendrick Motorsports teammate Gordon, on the other hand, finished 13th and partially squandered the opportunity presented by Johnson's accident early in the Dickies 500.

Martin, who came to Texas 184 points behind Johnson, finished fourth and goes to the season's penultimate race at Phoenix only 73 points out. As usual, he chafed at the media's fixation with the race for first.

"I still have got my hands full for the top-six positions [in the points] with all those guys -- two guys that knocked me out of championships [Texas race winner Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart] are breathing down my neck, so the race is still on," Martin said. "I don't know why everybody tries to cap this thing out and doesn't just wait and watch. There are still two races to go and still things that can happen."

Gordon hit Texas 192 points behind and goes to Phoenix -- where he broke a career winless skid in the spring of 2007, the first race there for the new car -- unofficially 112 points back. However, considering he was leading the race when Johnson crashed, his reaction was no surprise despite winning here in April and being second in this event a year ago.

"It was just a total missed opportunity," Gordon said. "All we could do throughout this whole Chase is fight, fight, fight -- and when [Johnson] put together the string of runs that they did, you just gotta keep pushing and if you make a mistake or if a problem happens, you've got to capitalize on it.

"It was a missed opportunity [Sunday] -- we just didn't capitalize on it. We just really didn't do a good job. I'm just terrible at this place. I don't know what it is. I can qualify and the guys gave me a real good car on Friday but I just don't have the feel for this place. I don't know what it is.

"It just challenged us all day. We seemed to be the best at the beginning of the race and we made some adjustments trying to make it better based on what I was telling them and we just went backwards from there and lost some track position. So it was a frustrating day."