April 6, 2009
By Ron Felix
In his seventeenth try, Jeff Gordon broke a 47 race winless streak by winning the Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday.
CIA Stock Photos
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Gordon Earns First Texas Victory
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It was Gordon's first win since October 13th, 2007 at Lowe's Motor Speedway and it was the 82nd victory in 552 career races.
Give credit to Gordon's pit crew, they won the race by getting him out first on the final caution. Carl Edwards was the leader and Gordon was running third when the yellow came out with 32 laps to go. Edwards' team dropped a lug nut and it cost him the position, and Gordon's team had their best stop of the day, getting him out first.
"How ironic is this," Gordon said. "The win here at Texas has eluded us for so long. This was an incredible team effort. This whole year has been amazing. What a great car. We've never had a car like this at Texas and we finally had one and put it into position.
"We had to tune on it. We took off real fast at the beginning and got the lead and got some bonus points but it was really loose and we started fading. We made an adjustment and went too far. I mean Steve Letarte (crew chief), I love this guy and he's a great crew chief. He listens to me and I was probably complaining too much so he over adjusted it because of how I was talking and we got tight. Man did he tune that thing back up and the pit stops were amazing.
"This whole DuPont Chevrolet crew, National Guard everybody this has just been an incredible year that we're having. How about my teammate (Jimmie Johnson)? This guy just won't go away. I was like where did he come from. It was unbelievable. It's so special to win here. I'm just thrilled and I can't wait to get home to Ingrid and Ella. Man what an amazing day it's been and I'm really thankful
Gordon also was the lap leader staying out front for 105 of the 334 circuits.
Jimmie Johnson, Gordon's teammate, was closing fast in the final laps and held on for second place. Johnson moved into the second spot in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Championship points behind leader Gordon.
"I was coming. Five more (laps) and we would have had a shot at him," Johnson said, referring to Gordon. "But we were both driving as hard as we could. It was nice to get our car up to the front and get some clean air on it. We had to work really hard all day long to get the car right. So, I’m very proud of the team. We have our old style back where we just keep plugging away and we’ll get is right come the end of the race. In another five laps we would have been racing with him. I’m not sure what would have happened, but it was a great race all together and I’m very happy for Jeff and now he’s got a victory (in Texas). He’s going to be tough this year, awfully tough.”
“I was just a couple tenths quicker a lap," Johnson continued. "I had an outside line that was working where I think I could have been able to get to him. Fortunately I didn’t have to run the same line as he did because I would have only gotten so close and stalled out. I feel like we had a shot at it. Hey, you know, it would have been five laps at least to get up alongside of him. I was clipping off just a little bit each lap, but it was cool. He had that thing dead sideways and I thought oh, here’s my chance and I’d jump on the gas a little too hard and get sideways. It was just flat-out driving at the end.”
Greg Biffle finished third and another good run for Tony Stewart, left him in fourth place. Matt Kenseth was fifth followed by Mark Martin, Juan Pablo Montoya, Kurt Busch, Jeff Burton and Carl Edwards to round out the top ten.
Edwards was not happy after the race.
“We missed the set-up, so from the beginning of the race we were struggling to get the balance," said Edwards. "And then Bob [Osborne, crew chief] got it balanced, we had that one good pit stop, passed Jeff for the lead, and I thought, ‘If we can have just one more, we’ll be all right,’ and then we went in leading and came out 11th, and that’s what cost us the race. My guys are trying real hard, we’re all in this together, but we can do a better job than that and I’m sure we will.
“The way this works is that I don’t anybody to tell me when I’ve done something wrong, they don’t need anybody to tell them," Edwards continued. "Those guys want to win this race just as bad as I do. We’re all in this together. They don’t yell at me when I hit the wall, so it’s not my position to be mad at them, we just have to do whatever we can to fix it. Hopefully, that’s good enough. I think we’ll get better. They can do it, they had one pit stop, we passed a ton of people and put us in a position to get the lead. I know they can do it, we just got to figure out how to do it every time.”
Joey Logano finished 30th and was named Rookie of the race.
The Sprint Cup Series takes another day off next Sunday -- and the next race on the Sprint Cup schedule –- the eighth event of 36-races for the 2009 Sprint Cup Championship. The Subway Fresh Fit 500k will be on April 19th, at Phoenix International Raceway Speedway in Phoenix, Arizona.
The race begins at approximately 8:30 p.m. eastern time with live, high-definition coverage provided by FOX beginning with its pre-race show at 8:00 p.m. eastern time. The race will also be broadcast live on SIRIUS Satellite Radio Channel 128 and MRN radio.
For full final race results...
(Insider Racing News)
For top-40 Sprint Cup drivers points...
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