Gordon looking for first win of season to seal Chase spot
LONG POND, Pa. — Jeff Gordon’s request for a lowkey farewell tour has mostly been respected, though the four-time NASCAR champion has been feted with a parade, bourbon, an 18-liter bottle of wine, even a track named in his honor.
In the final season of his trailblazing career, there was another tribute this weekend for the retiring great: Pocono Raceway painted “GORDON” in white at the start/finish line in honor of the winningest driver in track history.
Pocono Raceway CEO Brandon Igdalsky presented Gordon with a $24,000 check — to match his car number — for the Jeff Gordon Children’s Foundation. But the biggest goodbye of the season Gordon would love to wave to it the zero in the win column that would force him to qualify for the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship on points.
Entering the Windows 10 400 today, Gordon is 11th in the standings and a near lock to make the 16-driver field, though the results haven’t been enough to satisfy a driver with 92 career wins.
The cheers have touched Gordon, and the appreciation has made a driver with steel-eyed focus take note of his impact on the sport.
“There have been moments that have been really special to me, and that have stood out that I’m very appreciative of,” Gordon said. “It started with some of the things the tracks were doing and some of the things the fans were doing during the races on Lap 24 and things like that, which are very, very cool. And to see billboards for a brief moment and go, ‘Oh man, that’s awesome that they did that. Thanks.‘”
Gordon has only two topfive finishes this season and 11 top 10s in the No. 24 Chevrolet, a drop-off from 2014 when he was a contender for a fifth championship. Gordon failed to crack the top 15 in the first three races of the season for the first time in his illustrious career.
He turned back the clock to his glory days when he it seemed like he could win every week. Gordon won at Kansas, at Michigan, he won the Brickyard 20 years after he won the track’s inaugural race and he won a Chase race at Dover.
Gordon and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kasey Kahne are both winless. Jimmie Johnson has four victories and Dale Earnhardt Jr. two, though the entire garage has played catch up of late to Joe Gibbs Racing.
Kyle Busch has won three consecutive races, and four of five, and JGR had poles for each of the last three races. Busch won the pole for Sunday’s race and Gordon starts 10th.
“We’re not on top of the mountain any more, by ourselves anymore,” Earnhardt said.
Earnhardt’s fifth place two races ago at New Hampshire is Hendrick’s only topfive finish in the last three races.
“I don’t think we have been too thrilled over the last month about how things have gone for us,” Earnhardt said. “From Rick on down, you get the impression that things need to be better and everybody needs to work harder.”
Gordon, with six wins at Pocono, is ready to spark Hendrick toward a late-summer revival.
“I have a team that’s putting everything they have into it, and I’m just trying to do the same as a driver,” he said.