CUP: Gordon Finishes Third In Standings

Sprint Cup

CUP: Gordon Finishes Third In Standings

Jeff Gordon finished sixth in Sunday's Ford 400...

SceneDaily.com | Posted November 22, 2009 Homestead, FL

Hendrick Motorsports' Jeff Gordon finished sixth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway and ended the year third in the 2009 points race. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Hendrick Motorsports' Jeff Gordon admitted that it's tough to compete against teammate Jimmie Johnson season after season for championships. But when it came down to it, he enjoyed watching the driver make history Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

He also enjoyed making a little history of his own, as Gordon helped Hendrick grab the top three positions in the standings, a feat never before accomplished in NASCAR Cup racing history. Johnson matched Gordon's title tally of four, but Gordon didn't win his championships in consecutive seasons.

Gordon laughed that hitting the mark of locking down the top three spots in the standings meant a lot to team owner Rick Hendrick - who had been texting Gordon about the potential throughout the week. Gordon held off Penske Racing's Kurt Busch in the championship standings to take the third spot, behind four-time champion Johnson and runner-up Mark Martin.

After Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Ford 400, Gordon seemed a little in awe of all the record-setting going on this season. Also the co-owner of Johnson's No. 48 team, Gordon admitted that he'd seen the 34-year-old driver hit a mark that Gordon thought was out of reach at this level.

"I really never thought I would see in my career or in my lifetime somebody win four in a row so I think it's absolutely extraordinary what they've accomplished and to be right side by side with him in a race shop in our meetings and just all the time, really, as a team and see it happening right in front of your eyes makes it even more extraordinary," Gordon said. "… It's just a lot of hard work and effort, a great organization, a great team with a great driver."

He laughed about the additional pressure he felt to keep Hendrick in the position of netting the top three points finishers, but seemed at peace with the season in which he won one race and earned 25 top-10 finishes.

"Right now we're just going to enjoy this moment being one, two, three and those guys winning four in a row and go into [the] offseason with something to smile about and a lot of work left ahead of us," Gordon said.

Gordon said that his car was good early in the race, but that when the sun went down, "we just really struggled.

"[The car was] real loose and we tried to fix it and all we did was make the middle [of the corners] tight. But we finished sixth, finished third in the points. We did what we had to do. It wasn't real pretty."

Still, while he found the positives in the night, Gordon is clearly hungering for more.

"I'm happy that we're one, two, three but I want to be No. 1," he said. "Our team wants to be No. 1. We've got to try to figure out how to get back."

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