Martinsville, Va. ? Tony Stewart once got so frustrated with trying to go fast around Martinsville Speedway that he suggested it be turned into a bass fishing pond.

He never would allow it now.

Stewart won a paint-trading duel with Jimmie Johnson and overcame Hendrick Motorsports’ frustrating dominance of NASCAR’s smallest and trickiest track Sunday.

It was Stewart’s second victory at Martinsville, where he has also won three poles and where he led 530 of 1,000 laps a season ago without winning either race.

“The racing here has been awesome since they’ve done everything,” he said, speaking of resurfacing and other improvements. “They could still fill it up once a year with water, we could put dirt on it once a year. Just let us still run two Cup races.”

The race had all the typical beating and banging of a short-track event, but ended with none of the top contenders feeling they’d been wronged like last week in Bristol.

Stewart and Johnson dueled nose-to-bumper and side-by-side for four laps beginning with 30 to go Sunday, bringing the 65,000 fans to their feet. After being rebuffed three times, Stewart finally banged his way around Johnson with 27 laps to go.

NASCAR Nextel Cup DirectTV auto race winner Tony Stewart poses with the trophy, a grandfather clock, at the Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Va., Sunday, April 2, 2006.

“I knew we were a little quicker than him,” Stewart said. “There was no way he was going to give it away, so we were going to have to take it away. We didn’t turn him around. We didn’t spin him out. We just got the position that we were after.”

Johnson said it was easy for the one who prevailed to pass off the contact as typical short-track racing, but he had no complaints about being nudged and overtaken.

“I just kind of used up my stuff there at the end,” Johnson said.

The victory was the 25th for the defending and two-time series champion and second at Martinsville. Stewart celebrated in what is becoming his trademark, climbing the fence near the flag stand and enjoying the moment as his fans joined in from the other side.

“I’m still too old and still too fat, but as long as those people keep cheering like they do when I get up there, I’m going to keep doing it for them,” he said.