CUP: Jeff Gordon Seeks Smoother Ride At The Glen

Sprint Cup

CUP: Jeff Gordon Seeks Smoother Ride At The Glen

Jeff Gordon took a wild ride last year at Watkins Glen...

Mike Hembree | Posted August 05, 2010 Charlotte, NC

PHOTOS: Jeff Gordon, No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet Jeff Gordon is a past winner at Watkins Glen. (Photo: Getty Images)

It isn’t difficult for Jeff Gordon, who has mastered the road course at Watkins Glen International, to remember his last trip to the venerable track in New York’s Finger Lakes region.

PHOTOS: Jeff Gordon, No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet

It resulted in one of the most violent accidents of his almost-20-year career.

The wreck happened in the high-speed Turn 9. Kasey Kahne and Sam Hornish Jr. were racing side by side, and Kahne’s run through the turn forced Hornish off the track and into a tire barrier. That impact shot Hornish’s car across the track in the air, and it collided with Gordon’s car, sending Gordon’s Chevrolet hard into a guard rail.

Remarkably, no one was seriously hurt, but the crash aggravated Gordon’s back problems.

“It was a big impact, but I was more upset with how we ran to put ourselves in that position,” said Gordon. “Sam Hornish and … Kasey Kahne were racing hard, and then Sam went off the track and then ricocheted back across the track in front of me. I had nowhere to go. I think that is a testament to the safety of these cars that none of us involved were injured.”

There have been significant changes to the track since then, including paving of runoff areas to prevent cars from becoming stuck in “sand trap” spots adjacent to the track.

Among the results, Gordon said, should be fewer cautions and the elimination of time wasted towing cars from runoff areas in Sunday’s Heluva Good at the Glen.

Jeff Gordon has enjoyed great success on road courses. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

“I think you’re going to see a race that is more entertaining because we don’t have to sit there and pull cars out of the sand trap,” he said. “There’s always a penalty for going off the racing surface. The penalty in the past was more severe, and I think it actually took away from the racing.

“For safety reasons, the options now are better because we can ‘drive through’ a mistake. If a driver made a mistake in the past and ended up in the sand, it would take six laps under caution to get the car out of there. Now, I think the fans will see a lot more green-flag racing.”

The established king of NASCAR road-course racing, Gordon has four wins (1997, ’98, ’99 and 2001) at Watkins Glen and has finished in the top 10 in almost half – eight – of his races there. He also owns the track qualifying record of 124.580 mph.

“I love Watkins Glen,” Gordon said. “It’s a fairly easy road course for us, the course that we run, the shorter course. Sonoma to me has a lot of corners that there’s finesse you have to put into it, where Watkins Glen is the exact opposite. Really aggressive, fast, how deep you can get into the braking zones, being on the gas hard, carrying a lot of speed.

“I think it makes it a good course for our cars, a great course for our cars. It’s a little disappointing to me that we haven’t been as strong there lately as we have in the past. We actually did the tire test there with Goodyear a little bit earlier in the year. I’m excited about going back there this year.

PHOTOS: Past NASCAR Road Races

“I think we’ve got a great shot. I think we’ve made our car a lot faster. Getting those laps was great for me. I think we’ve made some big improvements. Looking forward to getting back to the successful road course racing that we’ve had in the past. Hopefully, we can do that this year.”

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.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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Mike Hembree

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