Hendrick Motorsports' Jeff Gordon effectively eliminated from championship race
Hendrick Motorsports' Jeff Gordon is battling for second in the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup championship race. // Mark Sluder, NASCAR Scene
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AVONDALE, Ariz. - Jeff Gordon was all but eliminated from NASCAR Sprint Cup title contention as his ninth-place finish in Sunday's Checker O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 put him 169 points behind points leader Jimmie Johnson, who will officially eliminate Gordon by starting the season finale next Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Gordon was disappointed as his solid car at the beginning of the day turned sour during the NASCAR Sprint Cup race.
“I was really excited when we started the race,” Gordon said. “We drove right to the front. … It just got away from us. We weren’t very good on the restarts, and it was just a ninth-place day for us.
“[It’s] a little disappointing because I thought we were going to be better than that. Even if we had been a third- or fourth-place car, the No. 48 [of Johnson] did what they needed to do, which is no surprise. We’ve seen them do it many times. That’s why they are three-time champions, soon to be four.”
A four-time champ himself, Gordon said the fact that even with a top-five car he likely wouldn’t have gained ground on Johnson didn’t change the way he felt about his day.
“It just really matters to me how we run,” Gordon said. “That’s how we operate. Last week, we didn’t run good and we didn’t capitalize on [Johnson’s] misfortune. And so if they finished ninth and we didn’t capitalize on that, I’d be upset, too. But it was more because we just didn’t run better.”
While he was disappointed, Gordon did take a little pride knowing that the Sprint Cup championship belongs to Hendrick Motorsports, either to Johnson or Mark Martin, who trails Johnson by 108 points.
“It’s gratifying to know that it’s coming to Hendrick Motorsports,” Gordon said. “We’re excited and at the same time, we’re just like everybody else out there: We want to beat the 48 team [of Johnson]. So it inspires us in the offseason to try to get better. We’ll look at doing that. We have one race to go and we’ll certainly look forward to giving those guys all the props and respect they deserve because they earned it.”
And now it’s time for Gordon to try to remain third in points (he is 42 ahead of Penske Racing's Kurt Busch) or gain 62 on Martin for second.
“There’s a lot of different reasons why we need to run good out there,” Gordon said. “It’s not just because we were trying to win the championship. We were also trying to stay within the battle that we have for second. We lost points to the 2 [of Busch], we lost points to the 5 [of Martin], and that’s what makes it a little more frustrating.”
Wherever Gordon finishes, he will be better than his seventh in points in 2008.
“We’ve got to get better ... and I feel like that was our efforts this year – we made them better but not good enough,” Gordon said. “We’ll come back next year and hopefully be stronger. We’re still looking forward to Homestead. I think we have a great car for that race, and we’ll see what happens.”
