Fort Worth, TX (Sports Network) - Jeff Gordon can now scratch off Texas Motor
Speedway from his list of Sprint Cup Series tracks where he has yet to win,
and he can also say farewell to his career-long winless streak.
Gordon won Sunday's Samsung 500 in his 17th Cup race at Texas and picked up
his first victory in a points-paying race since October 2007 at Lowe's
Motor Speedway in Charlotte.
The four-time series champion led the most laps with 105, but had to hold off
a late-race challenge from his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson to
record his 82nd career victory. He is one win away from tying Cale Yarborough
for fifth on the all-time race winners list.
"It feels like the very first time I've ever won," Gordon said. "It's been a
long streak. It's been a lot of ups and downs and tough times, not only here
at Texas, but just over the past. They keep reminding me...I think it was 47
races ago, and I knew we were going to get one eventually."
Prior to his victory, Gordon had finished twice at Texas, most recently in
November. His only two last-place finishes in his Cup career have also come at
the one-and-a-half mile track. He finished 43rd here one year ago.
Homestead-Miami Speedway is now the only active track where Gordon has not won
a Cup race. Homestead has been on the schedule since 1999.
"Every season you're looking for that first win," he said. "And you get that
one off your back and you can breathe and relax. We've been doing that 47
races now. And so this is a huge relief, but also very exciting. And I think
that this team has already shown how strong they are with their consistency
and the battles that we've had already, especially on the mile-and-a-half
tracks. And if we can win at Texas, I feel like we can win anywhere.
Johnson, who won last weekend's race at Martinsville, struggled with an ill-
handling car in the first-half of the race and fell back as far as 18th.
"I'm just very proud of the composure we kept today to fight through the ill
handling car at the start," Johnson said. "We just didn't have it right for
some reason."
After making adjustments during a round of pit stops, the three-time
defending Sprint Cup champion cruised through the field and rallied for a
second-place finish, giving Hendrick a one-two finish at Texas.
"We had to get to work with tire pressure, wedge and track bar," he said. "We
put stuff in, out, tried different combinations of those against one another.
Finally at the end, we got it close. I was able to start working my way up
through traffic."
It's the ninth time Gordon and Johnson have finished one-two in a Cup race.
Greg Biffle finished third, despite a pit-road blunder late in the race.
"We probably made some wrong decisions, whether to take two tires or four
tires in that one stop," Biffle said. "We lost just a little bit of track
position on that. We were able to gain some of it back. Then, unfortunately,
we had some lug nuts fall off or something on a pit stop. We lost a lot of
track position."
Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth rounded out the top-five.
Mark Martin, Juan Pablo Montoya, Kurt Busch, Jeff Burton and Carl Edwards were
sixth through 10, respectively.
Edwards, who was attempting to win his third consecutive race at Texas and
fourth overall here, held the lead in the late-stages, but David Stremme spun
and hit the wall on lap 302, setting up the final round of pit stops. Gordon
captured the lead for the final time, while Edwards came out 11th after his
crew had problems changing his tires.
Kyle Busch, winner of Saturday's Nationwide race, had a tough day at Texas.
Busch made contact with John Andretti and cut his left-front tire on lap
109. He had to make an unexpected pit stop for new tires and fell one lap
behind. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver was also penalized for speeding on pit
road during another stop. He ended up finishing 18th.
Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s mistakes on pit road continued this season. Earnhardt Jr.
had to pit again for a loose lugnut, but overshot his stall when he came in,
which put him even further back in the field. He later grabbed the lead when
he took fuel only during a caution. But Junior quickly gave up the top
spot after nearly making contact with the lapped car of Kyle Busch. Junior
scraped the wall shortly after, which caused slight damage to his car and
resulted in a 20th-place finish.
David Reutimann started on the pole and ran among the leaders for a better
part of the race. But Reutimann pitted outside of his box and lost a lap as a
result. He fell way back in the field. Reutimann did recover slightly with an
11th-place run.
The only major incident occurred on lap 230 when Sam Hornish Jr. went sideways
in turn two after running side-by-side with Clint Bowyer. Bobby Labonte veered
to the right to avoid the Hornish's spinning car, but made contact with the
wall. Labonte suffered heavy damage to his car and finished 40th.
With the victory, Gordon increased his lead to a season-high 162 points over
new second-place Johnson, who moved up two positions in the standings.
The series takes next week off and then heads to Phoenix International Raceway
for the first Saturday night race of the season, the Subway Fresh Fit 500, on
April 18.