Gordon entered Monday's Old Dominion 500 at Martinsville Speedway with a 237-point lead over Ricky Rudd. And after Gordon finished ninth and Rudd 39th with a blown engine, the lead increased to 334 points with six races remaining.

Gordon, however, isn't ready to celebrate.

"That scares me because it can turn around any time," he said. "This team is doing a phenomenal job right now making sure we get to the end of the race. It's so important not to make any mistakes right now. We made a few and we weren't able to capitalize on our car. We were but we weren't. I thought we had a better car than ninth, but we weren't able to capitalize on it and get it better there at the end.

"We'll go to Talladega and try to survive there, and go to the next race and try to survive there. Right now, that's what it's all about, if we're going to win this championship."

Tony Stewart, who entered the race third in the standings, finished 41st after the engine in his Pontiac blew up after 123 laps. Stewart dropped from third to fifth in the Winston Cup standings. Sterling Marlin is third followed by Dale Jarrett.

Gordon admitted when his two nearest competitors encountered problems, it changed his approach to the race.

"It probably changed a little bit," he said. "I was getting a little frustrated because the car just didn't seem to be as good as I wanted it to be. I saw how good Rudd and Jarrett both were -- they were real strong. It's unfortunate for Ricky that he had that trouble because he probably had the best car out there. But if you don't get to the end, you don't get the points.

"That's one of the things we've done so well this year is not have any mechanical problems. Even though it wasn't the type of performance we were hoping for today, we got a pretty decent finish out of it."

Despite the increase in his lead, Gordon isn't breathing easier.

"To me, it's just a nail-biter until this thing is over with anyway," he said. "What happened to Ricky Rudd today can happen to me next week or the week after that. You just never know. We've got to fight hard and just keep doing what we're doing until we get to the finish."

Rudd took the rare engine problem in stride.

"We had a really good race car," he said. "The Texaco Havoline Ford was really good. Earlier in the race, we got up to about fourth or fifth and made a scheduled pit stop and ended up with the lead, but it hung in third gear and I couldn't get it out of third gear. We had to come back in and work on it and fought our way all the way from the back and got back up to the front.

"We were ready to go and challenge for the win and then, all of a sudden, the motor let go."

Burton finished third
Ward Burton was able to survive the late-race scramble toward the front of the pack to finish third -- the highest-finishing Dodge.

"If they weren't going to get together and create a big hole for me, I was hoping that Ricky was going to win it," Burton said. "Ricky has been through a lot. He got injured when he was driving for Hendrick, and he has battled back. It's always nice to see a first-time winner. I was playing. That was just as close as I could get to them."

Burton was one of several cars, including the winner, that decided to change two tires rather than four on the final pit stop.

"Our car actually handled better by taking two right-side tires instead of four," Burton said. "That got us some track position quite a few times. We're proud of the progress we've made since the spring race here.

"It was a great day for us. I'm really happy with the effort by the team, particularly Terry Elledge back at the motor shop. The last time here, the engine combination we had here just wouldn't work no matter what we did to the car. It just shows a lot of hard work on their part to come back here and have a car that almost qualified in the top 10 and finished in the top five. Those guys have worked extremely hard all summer to figure out the Dodge powerplant."

It was the second race in a row that Burton finished third.