Jimmie Johnson took the lead from Bobby Labonte with 55 laps to go Sunday and held it through several restarts to win the crash-filled Subway 500 at Martinsville Speedway, and 2003 champion Matt Kenseth jumped ahead in the points as the series heads to Atlanta with seven drivers within 99 points of the leader.

With the win, Johnson moved from seventh to third with four races left.

Kenseth assumed the points lead when Jeff Burton called it a day after just 217 laps because of engine trouble, and most everyone took advantage.

Kevin Harvick is now second, 36 points back, and Johnson is 41 points behind. Denny Hamlin moved into fourth, 47 back. Burton dropped to 48 points off the pace.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (94), Mark Martin (96) and Kasey Kahne (99) also are within striking distance of Kenseth.

But Johnson, a two-time runner-up in the championship, made the biggest in the standings move after starting the race 146 points back. He quickly worked his way forward after being 10th on a restart with 94 laps to go, passed Gordon for second with about 70 laps to go and put Labonte in his rearview mirror on the 446th of 500 laps.

From there, he made it look easy, pulling away with relative ease on every restart except the last one, when Hamlin, a rookie, nudged him and pulled up alongside. Johnson rebuffed the challenge, got back in front and won by 0.545 seconds.

Labonte finished third, followed by Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon, who is 141 points back in the points standings. Kyle Busch is 171 back.

The race featured 18 cautions for 107 laps, and the 17th one was, remarkably, the only one that really impacted Chase contenders. It happened on lap 477 when Earnhardt and Kahne, battling for sixth, bumped in Turn 3, sending Earnhardt spinning.

Kahne raced on and finished seventh; Earnhardt wound up 22nd.

On the last restart, Hamlin stayed on Johnson's bumper heading into the first turn and bumped him coming out of the second turn, then pulled inside down the backstretch. Johnson stayed side-by-side with him for an entire lap, then beat him coming off the fourth turn to get in front and Hamlin seemed content to protect second place.

Earlier, it looked like it might be the day when Gordon tied Dale Earnhardt for sixth with 76 career victories, but Gordon's car wasn't good enough to pull it off.

After pitting for four tires and fuel under a caution on lap 367 while most other teams stayed out, Gordon moved into third when another caution flew with 100 to go.

But the four-time champion's car wasn't strong enough to pass either leader Bobby Labonte or Casey Mears, and when Johnson appeared on Gordon's back bumper with about 70 laps to go, it was only a matter of time before he also zoomed past his teammate.