October 14, 2007
By Ron Felix

Gordon Celebrates * CIA Stock Photo

Jeff Gordon didn't know if he'd have enough fuel to finish the race, the car had sputtered on the final two restarts and each time his Chevrolet did come to life, Gordon would run as fast as anyone on the track. After a lengthy red flag, for oil on the track, the race restarted with Gordon in the lead -- his car sputtered and pole sitter Ryan Newman shot past him for the point. It looked like Newman had the field covered and there would be no catching him, but Newman overdrove the corner and crashed, giving the lead back to Gordon.

That set up a green-white-checkers finish. It took several extra laps to clean up the mess and still Gordon's engine was missing as though it was starving for fuel. Gordon rode the low line of the track so the gas would pick up better and on the final restart, managed to hold off Clint Bowyer to win the Bank of America 500 at Lowe's Motor Speedway on Saturday night.

"Well, I can't tell you how many times we tried to give this one away," said Gordon, still not believeing he had just won the race. "Oh, man. I don't know where to start. This is just an incredible day for the DuPont Chevrolet. I've got to thank all these guys. They just never gave up.

"Jimmie Johnson, I'm not sure what happened to him. He had us all covered," Gordon continued. "When I saw they had problem, I thought that was an opportunity for us. We had an awesome race car. The best the car was all night was there towards the end. It was just on a rail. So, I just kept saying, 'No caution, please. No caution, no caution.' And I saw oil coming on my windshield. I saw that the No. 66 (Jeff Green) was leaking it. Everybody was going everywhere and I knew the caution was going to come. And then the thing ran out of gas. I was having trouble with the pickup. I was on the banking. And I wasn't smart enough to go around on the apron the first time. And then even on that last one, on the restart, the tires spun so bad that Clint Bowyer could have gone right by me and he gave me a big shot in the rear bumper and kind of got me going again."

Bowyer was in agreement with Gordon's assesment of the situation at the end of the race.

"Yeah, he (Gordon) spun the tires and I kind of backpedaled a little bit and got a good run on him and I just didn't pull it down quick enough," said Bowyer. "He slipped and I was gaining on him too fast and got into the back of him instead of going underneath of him. But nonetheless, this isn't my best race track. Gil and all the guys brought me a good hot rod. We went and tested this car and I got a lot of confidence in it and a lot of confidence in these guys. We ain't out of it. We're going to keep going and we're going to get Jack Daniels a championship."

Gordon had failed to finish the last five races at Lowe's and his goal when the race started was just to finish the 500 miles. Jeff Gordon won his first Cup race at this track in 1994, thirteen years ago. The win on Saturday night was his 81st career victory.

It was the second straight victory for Gordon, he also won the Talladega Superspeedway race last Sunday. It was the sixth victory for Gordon in 2007 and is the win leader for the year. Gordon also stretched his Nextel Cup point standings over Jimmie Johnson to 68 and 78 over third place in the standings, Clint Bowyer.

Kyle Busch finished third and RCR driver Jeff Burton was fourth. Carl Edwards had a good run, driving to a fifth place finish followed by Dave Blaney in a Toyota, Tony Stewart, Kasey Kahne, David Stremme and Michael Waltrip to round out the top ten.

“I would have liked to have run better throughout the night, but we ran well there at the end and that’s what’s important," said a happy Michael Waltrip. "Next week is a big deal for us because we haven’t made a flat track race this season. Our team needs to figure out what we can take to Martinsville next weekend that is different than anything we’ve taken anywhere else. I’m a typical race car driver -- we got a top-10 tonight, had a great run, and I’m worried about next week.”

Six drivers in the Chase for the Championship suffered troubles of one sort or another. Kevin Harvick pitted twice early in the race for tire problems and finished 33rd (seven laps down), Matt Kenseth crashed and finished 34th. Kurt Busch had several encounters, once in a pit collision and then the car sounded like it was running down one cylinder, he finished 26th. Denny Hamlin was 20th with transmission troubles, Jimmie Johnson, who led 95 laps, the most of any driver, was 14th after spinning and then stopping for fuel with three laps to go.

"We had a great race car. We didn't have a clean night tonight. I made a mistake," said Johnson. "We had mistakes through the night that kept hurting us on track position. Fortunately we had a good car and I could get back through there. I'd always come out sixth or seventh and get my way back to the lead. And then at the end there we had that problem with a vapor lock and it really hurt me from getting a good finish. But we have a great race team and we'll be back next week and try to score some points. We started off good. We made good progress through the field and got up to the front. Unfortunately the car vapor locked on that last restart and I just couldn't go anywhere so I dropped all the way back."

Tony Stewart had a pit collision with two different cars but managed to drive back to the seventh position.

"The No. 15 car was a minor thing, I think everybody got to hollering on the radio and never even saw the No. 9 car," said Greg Zipadelli, Stewart's crew chief. "That is what did the damage, the No. 15 just scraped the paint off, didn't really do anything else. With us rolling out, it would have been real easy for him to give us the go ahead, not that he has to; it is a give-and-take. If you have respect for people and they are racing for something you are not, you kind of usually do that. If you don't, the roles will usually be reversed."

A.J. Allmendinger finished 15th in Saturday night’s race, his best finish in 14 NEXTEL Cup Series races. He took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the first time in 2007.

“That was by far our best race," said Allmendinger. "We started off and the car was really good. That’s the best that we’ve ever started a race. We started driving up through the field. We were kind of tight all day. There’s two runs in there we got really tight and that hurt us. Fortunately we got the lucky dog that one time and the other time we were running around 20th and the yellow came out. But that last stop, Ricky [Viers, crew chief] and the boys, they made an awesome change and that thing was hooked up. Heck, if the yellow wouldn’t have come out I think we would have been, I think eighth or ninth."

The Nextel Cup Series moves to Martinsville Speedway next Sunday, October 21st for the Subway 500. This will be the 32nd race in the 36 race schedule.



For full race results...     (Insider Racing News)
For top-40 Nextel Cup drivers points...     (Insider Racing News)