The bump-and-run has been a staple of passing in NASCAR short-track racing, but the Car of Tomorrow makes the maneuver more difficult.

Jeff Gordon tried bumping teammate Jimmie Johnson out of the lead during the Martinsville race in April. Gordon's ploy didn't work. Johnson won and Gordon finished second.

The series returns to Martinsville this weekend for the Subway 500. With one more Car of Tomorrow race left in the season after this week, the question is if drivers have learned a new way to nudge competitors out of the way.

The difficulty is because the front and rear bumpers on the Car of Tomorrow are aligned so they hit head-on. Bumping someone only knocks them forward as Gordon did to Johnson this spring. With the older car, the nose sloped down, so the front bumper went under the rear bumper of another car and lifted the rear wheels. That often caused that driver ahead to spin.

"If you're trying to move someone out of the way by bumping them, you're just going to have to do it differently," Carl Edwards said of life with the COT.

Denny Hamlin, who finished third to Johnson and Gordon in the Goody's Cool Orange 500 in the spring at Martinsville, said the bump works. If a driver can shove another up even half a groove, "you're going to open up the door."

Gordon agrees the move still works even though he didn't move Johnson out of the way.

"I was just being kind to my teammate," Gordon said.

Although Tony Stewart has not been a fan of the Car of Tomorrow, he does like that the bumpers do align.

"It's nice to know that someone can't just jack you up and move you up the race track," he said.

"It's probably better for when you're in traffic, and there's five or six of you in line and somebody has to check up in front of you and you run into them and the guy behind you runs into you and you don't get spun out because of something that happened two cars in front of you. I think from that standpoint it's probably better."

Welcome back, Bill

Bill Elliott drives in his first Martinsville race this weekend since the 2003 season, his final year driving fulltime. Elliott has skipped Martinsville each year since going to a part-time schedule.

He's back this weekend with the Wood Brothers, because the team is outside the top 35 in car owner points. Elliott guarantees the team will run Sunday because he has a champion's provisional available.

Elliott finished ninth in his last Martinsville start, which came on Oct. 19, 2003.

No sale

A Hendrick Motorsports spokesman denied that Eddie DeBartolo was seeking to purchase the team, based on a quote attributed to the Sports Business Journal.

DeBartolo was interested in purchasing a Cup team in 2004 and talked to Hendrick Motorsports officials about them providing support and equipment for that team.

Number crunching

Jimmie Johnson has 16 top-five finishes in 35 Chase races (45.7 percent). ... Jeff Gordon has five consecutive top-five finishes at Martinsville; Johnson has four in a row. ...Dale Earnhardt Jr. has seven top-five finishes in his last 11 starts at Martinsville. ... Kyle Petty will make his 810th career Cup start this weekend at Martinsville, passing Darrell Waltrip for fifth on the all-time list.

Pit stops

The International Hot Rod Association runs its season-ending World Finals this weekend at Rockingham Dragway. ... UAW will not sponsor the Las Vegas Cup race after next year, track officials announced. ... Terry Labonte's son, Justin, will drive a Craftsman Truck this weekend at Martinsville for Darrell Waltrip's team. ... Glen and Leonard Wood will be inducted into the Virginia Motorsports Hall of Fame on Thursday.