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MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Juan Pablo Montoya's third-place run might have been the most entertaining part of Sunday's race even for a Martinsville Speedway crowd that enjoyed the win by Virginian Denny Hamlin.

Montoya and Jeff Gordon slammed each other early and Montoya used his bumper at times to nudge others out of the way. The right side of Montoya's car was decorated with at least four tire doughnuts from rubbing with other cars on the half-mile track.

"When people are clean with you, you're going to be clean with them," he said. "When they race the (heck) out of you, you're going to do the same."

It wasn't to Gordon, who complained on his radio after he and Montoya made contact around lap 100.

"He's an aggressive driver," Gordon said. "I thought I did something to make him mad because I didn't understand why he was just driving into me for no reason. Hey, that is Martinsville. That's kind of the way he drives."

The two raced for position late and didn't make contact.

"He gave me room, and I gave him room," Montoya said. "I never really had a big problem with him, but he's always so hard to race against. He probably says the same thing against me because he never gave me any room. Why am I going to give him any? It's a vicious cycle."

FAMILIAR GROUND: Mired in a funk since missing the Chase, Kyle Busch's fourth-place finish was his best result in two months.

He has struggled with his cars and also was sick one weekend. He had only one top-10 in the last four races and hadn't led in the last six entering Sunday's race at Martinsville Speedway. He started Sunday 41st.

The top-five finish could help boost Busch heading into these final four races of the season.

"I think, as a whole, for Kyle just right now, a lot of it is just the confidence," said J.D. Gibbs, president of Joe Gibbs Racing. "The reality is he's really gifted."

Gibbs also addressed a question of if he was re-evaluating having Steve Addington as Busch's crew chief.

"We just want to make sure we have the right tools, the right people in the right place,'' Gibbs said. "We think we do. We think we have a great group of crew chiefs to engineers to guys on the shop floor."

TOUGH DAY: Tony Stewart finished ninth, but it wasn't easy for the former series champion.

"It was definitely a survival day for us," said Stewart crew chief Darian Grubb.

THAT'S NOTHING: For as tough as it was on Stewart and his team, consider Kasey Kahne, who finished 32nd. It marked the third time in six Chase races he's finished 30th or worse. The other three times he's scored top-10 results.

He also was involved in three incidents Sunday and penalized for three violations.

"It definitely wasn't our day," Kahne said. "This has been a great track for us, so we need to work on that. It was a pretty frustrating day."

UPCOMING TEST: Goodyear is set to test the larger tire it is developing next on Dec. 8-9 at Phoenix International Raceway. Roush Fenway Racing, which did the test at Richmond earlier this month, will again do the test since it has a car to accommodate the larger dimensions.

LAST GO-AROUND: Jeff Burton finished 15th and teammate Casey Mears placed 18th in their last races with their crew chief. Burton's crew chief, Scott Miller, is moving to management. Mears' crew chief, Todd Berrier, becomes Burton's crew chief. Mears' new crew chief is Doug Randolph.

PIT STOPS: Jamie McMurray's sixth-place finish was his best of the season. ... Pole-sitter Ryan Newman finished seventh, marking the 11th time in the last 12 Martinsville races that the pole-sitter has not won. ... Kevin Harvick on his 10th-place finish: "This is the closest we have been in a long time."

Contact Dustin Long at 373-7062 or dustin.long@news-record.com