Jeff Gordon was having a relatively stress-free day until Jamie McMurray’s No. 1 Chevrolet clipped Gordon’s Chevy in Turn 4 after a restart on Lap 84.
From then on, it was a frustrating afternoon for the four-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion, who won last week’s elimination race at Dover.
“It was a handful,” Gordon said. “We were having a pretty solid day with the Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet until the No. 1 car got loose and got into our left rear–was just way over his head. I knew he had a good car. He’s been running good, but he just got loose and got into me and got me in the wall.
“We had a little damage, but we just lost all that track position. It’s so hard to get it back at this place. We somewhat got it back; and on that last restart (on Lap 240), I was just real loose. I’d been a little loose but not that loose. We just fell back. It just wasn’t good. We just kind of struggled there.”
Nevertheless, Gordon salvaged a 14th-place finish, best among a four-car Hendrick Motorsports contingent that had a litany of troubles on Sunday. Heading to next Sunday’s race at Charlotte, Gordon is eighth in the standings 17 points behind leader Joey Logano.
“A lot of people had trouble today,” Gordon said. “So today was a real survival day. We did that. It just felt like we could have finished a lot better than that. We had a good race car. We actually really had a great race car.”
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