Hendrick Motorsports' Jeff Gordon can't reign at New Hampshire Motor Speedway
Hendrick Motorsports driver Jeff Gordon finished second in Sunday's Lenox Industrial Tools 301 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. // Jim Fluharty, NASCAR Scene
LOUDON, N.H. – Jeff Gordon seemingly did everything necessary to win Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, but Joey Logano – and the weather – stood in the way.
Gordon, who led six times for a total of 64 laps, was poised to cycle back into the lead after a final round of green-flag pit stops before rain ended the race early with Logano in front.
Logano was going to need to stop for fuel in about five laps when the race was red-flagged and eventually called 28 laps short of the advertised distance.
So Gordon, who finished second, was left to ponder what might have been.
“There at the end, we were running second and we just had an awesome pit stop, got [out] first – well, not first on the track – but ahead of the guys who were racing,” Gordon said. “I was wondering why the guys were racing me really hard. I thought they were lapped cars, and we were actually racing for position and that cost me some time, and Kurt [Busch] started catching us.
“I saw the rain coming, and I pushed it the first lap or so, and it started getting pretty slick and [I] started backing off and Kurt really gained on me, and then [crew chief] Steve [Letarte] told me [Logano] was actually the leader. At that moment, my heart sunk that we didn't have a shot at winning it.”
Logano, who topped off on fuel after a spin on lap 182, was able to stretch his last tank farther than most of the leaders who made their penultimate stop under a caution about 30 laps earlier. Logano also pitted again on lap 194 just before the field went back to green following a caution for the wrecked car of Scott Speed.
So Letarte wasn’t that alarmed to see crew chief Greg Zipadelli attempt to keep Logano on track until the rain came.
“When you have an off-day you have those opportunities, and they took advantage of that opportunity and that’s a veteran crew chief and a veteran team making the most they can out of the situation,” Letarte said. “ … I was surprised they made it as far as they did, but I wasn’t surprised they tried. It was a lot of cautions in there, it was a great strategy.”
But that strategy didn’t bode well for Gordon, who had one of the two or three best cars in the field all day. But even once the final caution flew for rain, Gordon didn’t give up. And he tried everything within his power to make Logano’s plan backfire as the cars circled the track for a few laps under the final yellow flag that was ultimately replaced by the red flag.
“He was shutting the engine off and not keeping up with the pace car,” Gordon said. “I was just running pace car speed and it allowed me to get to the outside of him and make him start his engine and use some fuel and he didn't like that. So he moved up so I couldn't get to the outside, so I just went to the inside. I didn't want to push him, and I didn't want to back off because that was our only shot was for him to run out of fuel. You know, he did exactly what he needed to do.”
And so did Gordon. But it wasn’t enough.
“After the last couple years we had, you hate to ever give them away, and I feel that we got beat today when we probably shouldn’t have,” Letarte said.
