CUP: Jeff Gordon Smokes Field At Pocono

Sprint Cup

CUP: Jeff Gordon Smokes Field At Pocono

Hendrick Motorsports driver scores second victory of season…

Mike Hembree | Posted June 12, 2011 Long Pond, PA

Jeff Gordon took the lead with 19 laps to go and held on to win Sunday’s 5-Hour Energy 500 Sprint Cup race at Pocono Raceway.

The win was Gordon’s second of the season, dramatically increasing his chances of qualifying for the Chase for the Sprint Cup even if he doesn’t finish in the top 10 in the point standings. Two wild card Chase spots will go to the drivers with the most wins outside the top 10 but in the top 20.

The victory pushed Gordon’s career total to 84, tying him with Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip on the sport’s all-time win list. Now he trails only Richard Petty (200) and David Pearson (105).

Gordon claimed the lead after a series of green-flag pit stops with 20-30 laps to go as teams once more toyed with fuel-mileage numbers at Pocono. He beat Kurt Busch to the checkered flag by 2.96 seconds.

The victory was Gordon’s fifth at Pocono, making him the active leader in wins by full-time drivers at the track. Bill Elliott, now racing part time, also has won five at the 2.5-mile triangle.

Following Gordon and Kurt Busch at the finish were Kyle Busch, Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick.

“A lot of hard work has gone into this,” Gordon said. “We were embarrassed by the way we were running. When I came on board with Alan (crew chief Alan Gustafson) and his group [at the start of the season], I knew they were special and amazing.

“Then we went on a streak where we just weren’t competitive. What it takes is a team that believes in you and you believe in them. We never gave up today.”

The day was a bad one for series point leader Carl Edwards. His Ford dropped a valve early in the race, and Edwards returned to the track late in the day to finish 37th.

It was easily Edwards’ worst finish of the year, and his point lead over Johnson dropped from 40 to six.

The early part of the race featured some on-track jousting between rivals Kyle Busch and Harvick. Harvick forced Busch low on the track during one run, and NASCAR warned the drivers to concentrate on the race and not each other.

Busch said he backed off and let Harvick go until he could get in a better position to pass him. He said he wasn’t sure what Harvick had in mind.

“Maybe it just kind of shows his character and who he is,” Kyle said after the race. “It’s not my fight. He’s trying to turn it into one.”

Harvick, who is on NASCAR probation along with Busch, told reporters, “He (Busch) knows he has one coming. I just wanted him to think about it.”

After the race, NASCAR said Busch’s Toyota failed post-race inspection. The left front was measured too low to meet specifications. The car will be taken to NASCAR’s Research and Development Center in North Carolina.

Kyle Busch and Richard Childress, Harvick’s car owner, were involved in a brief garage-area scuffle last week at Kansas Speedway (resulting in a $150,000 fine issued to Childress), and Harvick and Busch tangled in a post-race pit road encounter earlier at Darlington Raceway.

A long pit stop – almost 19 seconds – early in the race cost perpetual Pocono threat Denny Hamlin. He led the race at that point but returned to the track chasing new leader Juan Pablo Montoya. He steadily cut into Montoya’s lead, but Hamlin dealt with problems, including losing his brakes in the second half of the race, much of the day.

The Montoya team tossed in a surprise halfway through the race. Enjoying a relatively comfortable lead on lap 110 when debris forced the third caution of the race, Montoya pitted and picked up only two new tires, while most of the rest of the lead group – in particular Hamlin and Gordon – took four, a typical response at that point of the race.

Five laps into the next green-flag run, Montoya had dropped to fourth – behind Kurt Busch, Gordon and Hamlin.

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 29 years. 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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