Sofa Sideline – Gordon Steamrolls to Win at Bristol!
On a hot, steamy Saturday night, with a
couple of laps to go, occasional "bad boy" Jeff Gordon, bumped his way
past Rusty Wallace to win the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway this past
Saturday night. It was his first win in 31 races, and moved him into third place
in the point race, just 111 behind leader, Sterling Marlin.
Gordon and Wallace, no doubt, were the
best cars on track. Wallace hung on to finish second, and although reported
there were some choice words expressed over the scanner following the incident,
when "officially" interviewed, Wallace seemed to chalk it up as one of
them racing deals. Maybe that undercurrent of knowing had the roles been
reversed, he’d of done the same thing.
Now that other Gordon – his true colors
were very much in evidence. He started the race running like a bull in a china
closet, appearing to be ‘a day late and a dollar short’ in having a clue as
to how to run that track. He put Jimmie Johnson in the wall; Johnson expressing
his displeasure through use of the universal hand gesture I’m sure we’ve all
displayed at least once or twice ourselves.
Gordon’s response to Johnson’s anger;
"There’s two sides to every story.
The other side is, Jimmie being two laps down and me being one lap down, the
courtesy wasn’t there from him, anyways. I gave him a couple taps under that
caution to let him know to let me go. I think he could have prevented the whole
thing by moving out of the way the way most guys did that were two laps
down."
NASCAR didn’t see it that way, and Robby
Gordon was penalized two laps for rough driving.
Ward Burton got the call to visit the
"red trailer" as well after a late race incident with Dale Jr. sent
the 22 crashing into the wall, and Burton standing out on the track throwing his
foot pads at Junior on the way by. Burton, obviously disappointed, particularly
since he’d spent most of the race in the top five.
Other notes:
Bristol has always been known as the place
where drivers are always "beating and banging" on each other,
basically because then can and know they are not necessarily going to totally
wreck the other guy, just maybe move him out of the way. To me, more respect and
greater skill is with those drivers who run a "clean" race; like Terry
Labonte (who unfortunately had car problems from the start), Bobby Hamilton and
Bobby Labonte.
Labonte had a great run going through much
of the first half of the race. He reminded me of a dirt-track driver we used to
watch as kids; would work the guy in front of him, running him until the mistake
was made and then just making the pass. Labonte was fast; many times the speeds
were faster than the leaders. He had made his way to third place, starting to
work on Junior (running second at the time), when on a restart where Mayfield,
up front, slipped coming off of turn two, DJ gets into him, and somewhere in
there Labonte winds up with the front right fender pushed in toward the tire.
The call was made to bring it in to the pits for repairs.
"I’m not sure who got into who on
the restart. We were coming to the green and the next thing I know I am hitting
the brakes and my left front gets cave in on the tire and we had to it to make
sure it wasn’t rubbing the tire," said Labonte. "It was a real
disappointment as I really thought I had a shot at giving the 24 and the 8 cars
a run for their money. They had been the class of the field up until that point,
and I thought we were just as good as them at that point in the race."
Labonte finished in ninth place.
Next up: Darlington Raceway – Southern
500; always a great race.
The ARCA RE/MAX series has a grueling
schedule over the next couple of weeks; Winchester, IN on Saturday night,
followed by Monday afternoon dirt-tracking in Du Quoin, IL and then the
following Saturday, September 7th, off to a sold-out event at Chicagoland
Speedway. I’m hearing some surprises may be in store at Du Quoin – should be
fun!
That’s it for now.