Forty-seven races. Seventy-seven calendar weeks. Five hundred and forty days. Twelve thousand, nine hundred and sixty hours. All of it a seeming eternity since the last time Jeff Gordon slid out of a race car in Victory Lane after a points-paying event in NASCAR’s premier series. The longest winless drought of the four-time champion’s career has finally come to an end, and he has a bright white cowboy hat and a pair of Beretta six-shooters to prove it.
Gordon won for the first time in 48 races Sunday at the 1 1/2-mile, high-banked Texas Motor Speedway, one of only two active tracks where the four-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion had never won a race.
“If you’re in this sport long enough, whether or not you’ve had success, you’re going to have your ups and downs,” Gordon said. “When somebody is a winner, you want to see them struggle a bit. I’m sure there are probably some people who thought, ‘Well, he’s struggled a long time, maybe Gordon winning would be good for the sport.’
“But I also know that some were loving the fact that we weren’t winning.”
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Gordon was nearly caught in the final laps by the teammate who has come to be his nemesis. Johnson, now just one championship behind Gordon, got to within half a second of the leader but couldn’t make a winning push at the end and settled for second.
FIN CAR DRIVER MAKE 1 24 Jeff Gordon Chevrolet 2 48 Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet 3 16 Greg Biffle Ford 4 14 Tony Stewart Chevrolet 5 17 Matt Kenseth Ford 6 5 Mark Martin Chevrolet 7 42 Juan Montoya Chevrolet 8 2 Kurt Busch Dodge 9 31 Jeff Burton Chevrolet 10 99 Carl Edwards Ford 11 0 David Reutimann Toyota 12 11 Denny Hamlin Toyota 13 98 Paul Menard Ford 14 12 David Stremme Dodge 15 39 Ryan Newman Chevrolet 16 83 Brian Vickers Toyota 17 77 Sam Hornish Jr. Dodge 18 18 Kyle Busch Toyota 19 9 Kasey Kahne Dodge 20 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. Chevrolet 21 7 Casey Mears Chevrolet 22 33 Clint Bowyer Chevrolet 23 25 Brad Keselowski Chevrolet 24 55 Michael Waltrip Toyota 25 1 Martin Truex Jr. Chevrolet 26 34 John Andretti Chevrolet 27 29 Kevin Harvick Chevrolet 28 21 Bill Elliott Ford 29 171 David Gilliland Chevrolet 30 20 Joey Logano * Toyota 31 78 Regan Smith Chevrolet 32 19 Elliott Sadler Dodge 33 8 Aric Almirola Chevrolet 34 44 A.J. Allmendinger Dodge 35 113 Max Papis * Toyota 36 43 Reed Sorenson Dodge 37 6 David Ragan Ford 38 26 Jamie McMurray Ford 39 7 Robby Gordon Toyota 40 96 Bobby Labonte Ford 41 47 Marcos Ambrose Toyota 42 9 Mike Bliss Dodge 43 66 Dave Blaney Toyota
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