From NASCAR.com...
JOLIET, Ill. -- Jeff Gordon didn't get out of his car and shove Matt Kenseth this time. According to Kenseth, Gordon did it while sitting in the driver's seat.
Kenseth was leading the USG Sheetrock 400 at Chicagoland with four laps to go when he was hit from behind by Jeff Gordon, sending him spinning onto the backstretch.
Gordon got a tremendous run on Kenseth on Lap 263, but Kenseth was in his way, and he refused to back off, mainly because he said that Kenseth was unfairly blocking him.
"In two laps, he could have passed me clean," Kenseth said. "He just dumped me."
Gordon, who won for the second time in three weeks, was unapologetic, saying his aggressiveness was necessitated by his need to win.
"I drove right in the back of him," Gordon said. "I didn't mean to wreck him, but I didn't mind moving him out of the way. If we can get the win, we are going to go really hard to get that win.
NASCAR officials said the incident was just hard racing.
"A slower car in front of a faster car, and passing traffic in the closing laps of a race, it happens a lot," said NASCAR president Mike Helton. "If we had seen anything there for us to react to, we would have reacted to it already."
Robbie Reiser, Kenseth's crew chief, didn't agree.
"Well, you're trying to lap a racecar and the guy drives in the back of you," Reiser said. "I don't know if I agree with that deal."
It was the second incident of the season between the two, who clashed at Bristol in March. In that race, Kenseth bumped Gordon, and Gordon got out of his car and shoved Kenseth on pit road after the race. That action cost Gordon $10,000 and put him on probation until Aug. 31.
"I got the bad end of it at Bristol, and he got the bad end of it today," Gordon said. "If he had come and shoved me, it would have been a clean slate. Those guys are racers and they understand what happens when you race for a win like that."
The contact on Sunday ruined a possible top-three finish for Kenseth, who led a race-high 112 laps but admittedly didn't have the car to beat Gordon.
That was what ticked Kenseth off. He knew Gordon was going to beat him head-to-head, but he didn't think he would finish the race in the infield care center.
"I know for sure it was intentional, but that is OK," Kenseth said. "We didn't have the car to win. I just could not get it pulled off. We would have run out of fuel anyway."
Kenseth recovered from the spin and was on the track for the last lap, but he tangled with David Stremme and wadded his car against the Turn 1 wall after the checkered flag.
It was the second consecutive year that Kenseth led the most laps at Chicagoland, only to lose the race -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. beat him last year on pit strategy.
Kenseth suggested that Gordon might have been angry over a restart on Lap 237, accusing Gordon of hanging back illegally when the green flag flew.
"On the restart, he was hanging back," Kenseth said. "I have never seen [NASCAR] enforce it."
Gordon said that Kenseth continuously blocked him.
"I wanted to race and I had a run but he blocked me again," Gordon said. "I couldn't believe he was doing that and then I had such a great run that I'm not going to back out."
