Gordon wins NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Atlanta

                                                                                          For most of the afternoon, Jeff Gordon was the man to watch at Atlanta Motor Speedway Tuesday.

He led laps early and late. He appeared to have a historic NASCAR Sprint Cup victory in hand.

But as the laps wound down, a battle of champions developed. Gordon, who had appeared to have the race in hand, suddenly fell back into a battle with team mate Jimmie Johnson.

Gordon had passed his teammate to take his final lead on Lap 276 of the 325 at the rain-delayed and then rain-interrupted AdvoCare 500 Tuesday afternoon.

Both drivers were chasing their cars on the track. Both drivers were hungry. They raced clean, but they raced hard.

Johnson dove inside Gordon with three to go, his latest attempt to take the win. Gordon again clipped him off at the last minute, holding his spot.

Gordon, a four-time series champion, was a consistent frontrunner throughout the race — the only one who was strong start to finish. He earned his 85th career Cup win, which puts him in sole possession of third on the all-time winners list. And he further secured his role as one of the favorites for the 2011 championship.

Gordon took the win, with five-time defending Sprint Cup champion Johnson finishing second. Tony Stewart, Kurt Busch and Carl Edwards rounded out the top five.

Two days after the race was postponed because of rain, it looked like it just might end under the same conditions. Drivers struggled to get into any kind of rhythm as a misty rain began to steadily interrupt the action shortly after the halfway point of the race Tuesday afternoon.

The interruptions threatened to alter the race, but in the end had little impact.

Gordon’s win was set up following a late pit stop. On Lap 247, Martin Truex Jr. led the field following a caution period and a crafty two-tire pit stop, but immediately surrendered the spot to Johnson, who took his first commanding lead of the day. David Ragan was running ninth and blew up, but the caution did not come out until Regan Smith brought out the yellow flag with heavy damage on his car after getting hit by Mark Martin.

That set up another restart in a race that had been highlighted by tight battles every time the green flag waved.

Johnson slipped away from the field at that point, as Gordon began to make his trek toward the front of the field. On Lap 267, he took second from Edwards and began trying to move up on Johnson. Gordon had led 100 laps in the race and had been the frontrunner when it hit the halfway point, but lost positions on pit stops later in the race.

Gordon soon began putting pressure on Johnson for the lead and, on Lap 276, he took the lead from his teammate. He pitted eight laps later and held the position through green-flag stops. Johnson trailed by .652 second after the stops cycled through.

Gordon’s dominant position was hard to track in a race in which drivers faced a series of interruptions after reaching the halfway point.

The first brief interruption for rain had found Edwards in the lead. The second threatened to net a surprise winner as J.J. Yeley and Landon Cassill opted to stay out during the pit sequence to take the top two spots, but they pitted as the green flag came out. The latter stoppages set up thrilling restarts with top drivers going three wide for the lead as rain continued to be a threat.

After Yeley and Cassill pitted, Matt Kenseth retook the lead, restarting alongside teammate Edwards. On the restart, as Kenseth pulled away on the outside, Kevin Harvick whipped around inside of Edwards and began dueling with Edwards for second. The two closed on Kenseth for the lead as rain threatened at the track.

Kenseth was pulling away, radioing his team that he was about to wreck on the track and that a caution needed to be thrown. NASCAR quickly did just that as the mist hit the track once more, putting out the caution flag on Lap 221.

Again, Kenseth and Edwards started side by side, with Harvick and Johnson right behind them. Charging forward on the restart, Johnson suddenly moved into second and began mounting a challenge on Kenseth. Edwards soon moved back into the fray and the trio began to battle for the top spot.

With 85 laps to go, Johnson and Edwards put pressure on Kenseth. Johnson kept trying to clear Kenseth and couldn’t quite do it. Then Edwards moved right onto Kenseth’s bumper as Clint Bowyer slid up and cut off Juan Pablo Montoya, who hit him with his bumper and caused Bowyer to hit the wall, causing the caution on Lap 242. That was a crushing blow for Bowyer, who is trying to fight his way into a spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

And then Gordon took over.

The early segment of the race featured a showdown between Gordon and kyle Busch. The pair combined to lead 120 of the early laps in the race, but Busch struggled after brushing the wall and dropped out of contention for the win as the race wore on.