GORDON HUMBLED IN RETURN TO RACING

INDIANAPOLIS Jeff Gordon finished 13th in his return to NASCAR on Sunday, which isn’t bad for a guy who hadn’t been in a race car since November.

As it turned out, his substitute driver duty in place of Dale Earnhardt Jr. ended in a respectable result in the Brickyard 400. On the other hand, going up against the world’s best stock car drivers left him feeling humbled.

“I’m filling in for Dale Jr., but I needed a fill- in on restarts,” he said on pit road at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “Restarts were never my thing, but when you’ve been out of it for eight months, I’ve lost a step even there.

“Being out of the car this long made me realize how tough this truly is, how talented these drivers are. They just took advantage of me on these restarts. They knew they could, and they did. It’s a testament to the talents and abilities of the people in this sport.”

On the plus side, Gordon said he was grateful to race the 2016 aero package, which he said helped in his understanding of the sport. After all, he’s now an analyst for Fox Sports.

The race also proved to people, he suspected, that he was tougher than they might think after he gutted out an intense, hot race without being in race shape leading into it.

“Deep down inside, I know I’m tougher than a lot of people think I am,” he said. “I think today may have shown I’m maybe a better driver than they thought I was.”