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June News

Battling Back
SAVE MART 350. Infineon Raceway: Finish: 2nd

Rewind: It was truly a tale of two races for Jeff Gordon as he struggled with handling at the outset. However, a pit call to stay on the track with 20 laps to go brought the DuPont Chevrolet to life as Gordon rallied for a runner-up finish. It was his 3rd top-5 finish in the last 4 races. Gordon struggled with drive off the corner at the outset and fell from 12th to 16th in the first 9 laps. Carl Edwards went by on lap 11 and dropped Gordon back to 17th place. One lap later, Gordon slipped to 18th as Martin Truex passed. He came to pit road for a green flag stop on lap 19. Gordon ran in 16th place when the pit stop sequence cycled through the field. Gordon ran in 17th when the first caution waved on lap 32 for Casey Mears stalling on the racetrack. Gordon pitted for chassis adjustments during the caution flag. He restarted 23rd and avoided a wreck in turn 11 after Tony Stewart shoved Brian Vickers into the corner. Gordon moved up to 17th after working his way around the carnage. On the restart, he entered the top-15 after avoiding Martin Truex's spin in turn 11. A debris caution on lap 48 slowed the field, which brought a round of pit stops. Gordon restarted 28th on lap 51 due to the first 14 cars staying on the track. Gordon moved up to 22nd by the time the next caution waved on lap 59 for Bobby Labonte's crash. He made his way up to 16th on lap 64 before fading back to 23rd place. He ran as high as 5th place during a green flag pit stop sequence, but eventually pitted on lap 79. Gordon returned to the race in 26th place. He ran in 24th when Vickers intentionally wrecked Stewart as payback in turn 11. However, Gordon stayed on the track and moved up to 8th for the restart with 19 laps to go. With 18 to go he took 6th place from David Gilliland, but lost the spot to Juan Pablo Montoya who had fresher tires. Gordon moved into 5th when Montoya and Kasey Kahne got together on the track. With 12 laps to go, Gordon eased around Truex for the 4th position. He took 3rd from Brad Keselowski with 9 laps to go. Coming to the white flag, he took the runner-up spot from Carl Edwards.

Road ahead: The series heads to Daytona for the annual early July 400-miler. Gordon qualified on the outside of the front row for the Daytona 500 and was strong at Talladega in April. Gordon led the white flag lap, but finished 3rd in a 3-wide battle to the finish.

JG's comments:

AT ONE POINT THE CAR WAS PLOWING, SIDEWAYS LOOSE WAS THIS A STATEMENT KIND OF DAY WHEN THE TEAM SALVAGED THEIR DAY?
"It certainly was. It was as much a statement to us as anything else. You know a great effort by this team and Alan and everybody. It was a struggle. I've got to tell you we really missed the set up at the beginning of this race. I don't know just the adjustments we made were that good or the track position or the track changing at the end. It looked like a lot of guys were really, really struggling with grip there at the end and our car was actually pretty good. We were fast and I think we were faster than the leaders. That felt awesome to start there with old tires and be able to work through traffic all the way up to second, man that was amazing."

YOU'VE GOT JEFF GORVETTE ON THE CAR AND I GUESS KURT BUSCH MUST HAVE BEEN LIGHTNING MCQUEEN TODAY
"I guess so. I tell you what, Jeff Gorvette came on there at the end and you know what, I've just got to say thanks to this team. I know we do that all the time. But if you guys were watching that car, you know it was a struggle today. We were way in the back and not moving forward. We just missed the set-up at the beginning of this race. Alan and all the guys came together and made some good adjustments and that was a great call there at the end to stay out. We didn’t know. I thought really, even there at the end, that we were probably going to get beat up by some of the guys on newer tires. But the car just really stayed good there and we were able to even beat a lot of the guys in front of us and run them down. So that was a lot of fun. I was just so thankful the car finally came together there at the end. We were really, really struggling. So it was a great team effort."

HOW DO YOU KEEP YOUR PATIENCE WHEN YOU’RE DEALING WITH A ROUGH BEGINNING OF THE RACE?
"It was hard. You've got to ride it out. You've got to keep your nose clean and stay out of trouble. There were a lot of guys doing some silly things that were wrecking and causing themselves a whole race instead of just trying to survive. When the car is like that you kind of have to give up the spots and not fight the guys off too much, which is just the toughest thing to do. You want to race. But we just didn’t have what it took there to do that and so we just were patient and that’s part of being old. I’m going to be 40 this year and I’m more patient nowadays than I used to be. So I just appreciate this team hanging in there. It was not fun for any of us to see that but boy to hang in there and to come back and fight for second there at the end with Carl (Edwards) and to get a second place out of this day, wow."