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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Gordon Looks For Bounce At Bristol
Jeff Gordon has won five times at Bristol Motor Speedway...
Mike Hembree  |  Posted March 16, 2010   Charlotte, NC
Jeff Gordon was the highest finisher for Hendrick Motorsports in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Heluva Good 400 at Michigan International Speedway. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
A significant slice of the success Jeff Gordon has logged in a very impressive Sprint Cup career has been recorded at Bristol Motor Speedway.

The statistics are striking. Gordon has won five times at BMS, tying him with Kurt Busch for the lead in that category among active drivers (retired driver Darrell Waltrip leads all-time with 12). In 34 races at the half-mile track, Gordon has led all but nine. He has led 2,438 laps at BMS, making him the active leader, and second-place Tony Stewart is far behind at 1,352.

It also is quite remarkable to note, however, that Gordon has not won at Bristol in almost a decade. His last win occurred in August 2002.

And he approaches Sunday’s Food City 500 with a continuing winless string overall. His last Sprint Cup victory was logged in April 2009 at Texas Motor Speedway, a drought of 33 races.

As if Gordon’s hill wasn’t already big enough to climb this weekend, he and other drivers will be scaling a “new” Bristol of sorts. Track officials decided to add 160 feet of SAFER barriers to the track in turns two and four, eliminating some track space and, in the words of track president Jeff Byrd, establishing a “more confined racing area.”

This is bad news for drivers but potentially good news for spectators, many of whom lashed out at the track, long a favorite of fans, after a recent repaving and restructuring of the surface expanded the racing grooves and, in their view, ruined Bristol’s reputation as a rock ’em, sock ’em racetrack where drivers had to fight for every inch of racing room.

Drivers widely praised the renovations prior to last week’s addition of the new SAFER barriers, and most viewed the racing as improved, especially because a second groove was opened up and cars could run side by side through the turns. Even after fan criticism, Jeff Burton was among those drivers praising the change. “The racing there is just better all the way around,” he said. “It just is.”

Gordon said the SAFER barrier extensions in place for this weekend’s racing might create a happy medium.

“Possibly with the SAFER barriers making the track narrower, that might make it a little harder to get side by side and make passes,” he said Tuesday. “That might give the fans what they want because that means you might have to use the bumper to make passes, and that causes excitement and sparks and cautions and tempers. That’s apparently what the majority of the fans want.

“I think as drivers we like a track that’s not a one-groove track. They created a multi-groove track where we could get side by side and race clean for the pass and still be able to make those passes. I still think the racing’s great at Bristol, the best we’ve ever seen. That’s not always what the fans want. This should be a happy medium. We’ll see.”

Gordon said he and his wife, Ingrid, and their daughter, Ella, enjoyed staying at home last weekend during the season’s first “off” week. They spent part of the time, he said, preparing for the arrival of their second child, which recent tests have revealed will be a boy.

“We no doubt were rooting for a boy,” he said. “For us, the ultimate will be to have a boy and a girl. We wanted two, and we wanted both. We were going to stop at two no matter what.”

Asked if he thought his son might follow him into racing, Gordon said, “Whatever it is that will be their passion in life, I’ll support it,” he said. “If it’s racing, I’ll support either one of them. We’ll see if there’s something they’re really truly passionate about and interested in. I don’t think my parents thought I was going to be a race car driver when I was born, but they were interested in pursuing opportunities with their child and defining the passion.”

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEEDtv.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of America's Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

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