Gordon's legacy continues at M'ville despite roadblock
By Dave Rodman, NASCAR.COM
April 2, 2007
11:52 AM EDT
MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Jeff Gordon did nothing to hurt his Martinsville legend Sunday, despite a "disappointing" second-place finish in the Goody's Cool Orange 500.
When a rain shower caused a red flag and disrupted the event's flow with a little more than 100 laps remaining, Gordon had already staged a tremendous comeback in his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet to sit fourth.
"Jeff Gordon," crew chief Steve Letarte said when asked the key element of his crew's dogged comeback. "I mean, he put a display on getting back up there.
"He's a magician here. I wish I knew what he did -- I'd bottle it and sell it. But he knows how to work traffic and he knows how to work lapped cars."
The Hendrick Motorsports leader's return from the low teens midway through the race after a mysterious tire problem ensured that Gordon remained the Nextel Cup points leader for the next two weeks.
The series is idle next weekend to honor the Easter holiday, leaving Gordon 28 points clear of second-place Jeff Burton.
While the last 40 laps of the race will be what people remember when they think of this Martinsville event -- with Gordon and Johnson sparring and trading paint before Johnson won by half a car length, Gordon did a lot to get to that position.
Gordon was running with the leaders at Lap 235 when he went into Turn 1 and his car speared straight ahead. Gordon, thinking he had a flat tire, moved high and plodded around the track until he figured out what was wrong.
He fell back to 15th before a caution flew, enabling his team to assess what had occurred. They never definitively did -- thinking some rubber buildup possibly had fallen out of the fender well and onto the right-front tire.
"I'm disappointed we had our trouble, whatever it was -- maybe a piece of rubber got on the tire," Letarte said. "Jeff did a wonderful job staying out of the wall.
"But it's just frustrating, you know? We come up here to win, and I'm not going to be happy with [anything else] no matter where we started or where we ran.
"I'm happy with the way the car performed, because it's a big task to get this car to turn here, and I feel we've done a pretty good job with that. And [teammate Jimmie Johnson won], so overall, it was a good day."
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Gordon missed a chance to tie the late Dale Earnhardt with eight Martinsville victories, but said that was a fan- and media-generated bit of hyperbole that he never considered.
"I use that as zero motivation," Gordon said. "Other than getting asked the question from time to time, I don't even think about it. Once it happens, if it happens then we can talk about it and it'll be cool but there was no point in my career where a race win or a championship was all about trying to match somebody else or break a record with somebody else.
"It's always just a motivation to win every single time we're on the track and that's what I use as motivation."
He also said he never considered wrecking his teammate to gain the win, which only adds to Gordon's overall legacy.
"It was a great race and I basically had to wreck him to win it and I'm not going to wreck my teammate for a win," Gordon said. "I tried to move him several times but he's tough here and he ran his line, did what he needed to do.
"We had a much faster racecar but the best car doesn't always win. It was just a great, great effort to have that kind of a racecar and I really thought we should have won this one and I'm pretty disappointed that we didn't.
"Like I said, he did what he needed to do and if roles were reversed obviously I'm going to do what I've got to do to protect that spot as well. He'll probably one day be sitting in here and not happy about it either but we race hard, we race clean, we've been racing one another for years."
But this chess match was one of a kind.
"I can't say we've ever had a battle quite like this down to the finish and we've never had issues on the racetrack where I didn't feel like we could laugh and talk about it the next day and move on.
"We're out here to win a championship and by wrecking him or myself or both of us trying to go for that win which Rick Hendrick has seen before -- I don't want to be a part of that but I did everything I feel like I could to win the race.
"In the future if the roles are reversed I'm going to do everything I can to protect the lead."
Gordon and Johnson will have their chance to laugh about the result when they test on Tuesday and Wednesday at Richmond International Raceway. After that, Gordon said he'd take advantage of the Easter break.
"We're going to test at Richmond for a couple of days, have a little fun there and then head down to somewhere in the Caribbean and enjoy what will probably be [wife] Ingrid and I's last vacation before we have an addition to the family," Gordon said. "We're going to enjoy the time together and look forward to the upcoming races and the baby on the way."
By Dave Rodman, NASCAR.COM
April 2, 2007
11:52 AM EDT
MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Jeff Gordon did nothing to hurt his Martinsville legend Sunday, despite a "disappointing" second-place finish in the Goody's Cool Orange 500.
When a rain shower caused a red flag and disrupted the event's flow with a little more than 100 laps remaining, Gordon had already staged a tremendous comeback in his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet to sit fourth.
"Jeff Gordon," crew chief Steve Letarte said when asked the key element of his crew's dogged comeback. "I mean, he put a display on getting back up there.
"He's a magician here. I wish I knew what he did -- I'd bottle it and sell it. But he knows how to work traffic and he knows how to work lapped cars."
The Hendrick Motorsports leader's return from the low teens midway through the race after a mysterious tire problem ensured that Gordon remained the Nextel Cup points leader for the next two weeks.
The series is idle next weekend to honor the Easter holiday, leaving Gordon 28 points clear of second-place Jeff Burton.
While the last 40 laps of the race will be what people remember when they think of this Martinsville event -- with Gordon and Johnson sparring and trading paint before Johnson won by half a car length, Gordon did a lot to get to that position.
Gordon was running with the leaders at Lap 235 when he went into Turn 1 and his car speared straight ahead. Gordon, thinking he had a flat tire, moved high and plodded around the track until he figured out what was wrong.
He fell back to 15th before a caution flew, enabling his team to assess what had occurred. They never definitively did -- thinking some rubber buildup possibly had fallen out of the fender well and onto the right-front tire.
"I'm disappointed we had our trouble, whatever it was -- maybe a piece of rubber got on the tire," Letarte said. "Jeff did a wonderful job staying out of the wall.
"But it's just frustrating, you know? We come up here to win, and I'm not going to be happy with [anything else] no matter where we started or where we ran.
"I'm happy with the way the car performed, because it's a big task to get this car to turn here, and I feel we've done a pretty good job with that. And [teammate Jimmie Johnson won], so overall, it was a good day."
Page 1
Page 2
Gordon missed a chance to tie the late Dale Earnhardt with eight Martinsville victories, but said that was a fan- and media-generated bit of hyperbole that he never considered.
"I use that as zero motivation," Gordon said. "Other than getting asked the question from time to time, I don't even think about it. Once it happens, if it happens then we can talk about it and it'll be cool but there was no point in my career where a race win or a championship was all about trying to match somebody else or break a record with somebody else.
"It's always just a motivation to win every single time we're on the track and that's what I use as motivation."
He also said he never considered wrecking his teammate to gain the win, which only adds to Gordon's overall legacy.
"It was a great race and I basically had to wreck him to win it and I'm not going to wreck my teammate for a win," Gordon said. "I tried to move him several times but he's tough here and he ran his line, did what he needed to do.
"We had a much faster racecar but the best car doesn't always win. It was just a great, great effort to have that kind of a racecar and I really thought we should have won this one and I'm pretty disappointed that we didn't.
"Like I said, he did what he needed to do and if roles were reversed obviously I'm going to do what I've got to do to protect that spot as well. He'll probably one day be sitting in here and not happy about it either but we race hard, we race clean, we've been racing one another for years."
But this chess match was one of a kind.
"I can't say we've ever had a battle quite like this down to the finish and we've never had issues on the racetrack where I didn't feel like we could laugh and talk about it the next day and move on.
"We're out here to win a championship and by wrecking him or myself or both of us trying to go for that win which Rick Hendrick has seen before -- I don't want to be a part of that but I did everything I feel like I could to win the race.
"In the future if the roles are reversed I'm going to do everything I can to protect the lead."
Gordon and Johnson will have their chance to laugh about the result when they test on Tuesday and Wednesday at Richmond International Raceway. After that, Gordon said he'd take advantage of the Easter break.
"We're going to test at Richmond for a couple of days, have a little fun there and then head down to somewhere in the Caribbean and enjoy what will probably be [wife] Ingrid and I's last vacation before we have an addition to the family," Gordon said. "We're going to enjoy the time together and look forward to the upcoming races and the baby on the way."
