INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — With a tinge of gray hair at his
temples, his hat on backward and his two young children by his side,
Jeff Gordon celebrated as if he was 23 years old again.
Gordon won
a NASCAR-record fifth Brickyard 400 on Sunday, eight days before his
43rd birthday and on the weekend Indianapolis Motor Speedway celebrated
the 20th anniversary of his first Brickyard victory.
Gordon’s
first win came before the celebratory kissing of the Yard of Bricks was
en vogue, before he became a household name, while Sprint Cup Series
rookies Kyle Larson and Austin Dillon were still in diapers. Now a
family man with an aching back, Gordon used Sunday to show he’s still at
the top of his game.
"If you can do it here, you can do it
anywhere," said Gordon, who has led the Sprint Cup Series standings for
13 of the last 14 weeks. "It’s certainly going to be a huge confidence
boost for this team. We recognize the significance of this.
"We
saw we were points leaders, we won at Kansas, but I don’t know if we
believed we were capable of winning this championship this year. We do
now."
To prove it to himself, to his Hendrick Motorsports team and
to his ardent fan base, Gordon needed a vintage close to Sunday’s race.
Hendrick
teammate Kasey Kahne led a race-high 70 laps and seemed only to be
racing against his gas tank when a late caution put the race back into
Gordon’s hands. He’d have one shot at passing Kahne, on a dreaded
restart, and nobody was sure if ol’ "Four-Time" had it in him.
Restarts
are his Achilles heel, and he’s struggled with them for several years.
And Kahne, who is winless on the season, desperately needed the victory
to grab a berth in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship field.
"The
restart is going to be the race, really," Gordon’s crew chief, Alan
Gustafson, conceded in a television interview moments before the field
went green with 17 laps remaining.
Kahne picked the lower, inside
lane for the restart, and Gordon found himself on the outside and
exactly where he wanted to be. Gordon tried to set a quick pace as they
headed to the flag, and Kahne tried to slow it down in the restart zone.
Gordon
shifted into fourth gear and surged past Kahne on the outside, and
Gordon kicked it into cruise control as he sailed away for the win.
"I
think we both knew that was for the win," Gordon said of Kahne. "Out of
nowhere, I have the restart of my life at the most important moment
that you could ask for in a race, in a season, at a race like this. That
was just awesome."
The win came on the 20th anniversary
celebration of Gordon’s win in the inaugural Brickyard 400, and on "Jeff
Gordon Day" as declared by the Mayor of Indianapolis. The win moved
Gordon into a tie with Michael Schumacher, whose five Formula One
victories at Indy had been the gold standard.
"I told him this morning that this was his day," said team owner Rick Hendrick.
Kahne
plummeted to fifth after the restart, then ran out of gas on the final
lap and had to nurse his car home to a sixth-place finish. He said he
erred in picking the inside line for the restart.
"I should have
chosen the top (lane), obviously," he said. "I pretty much let Jeff
control that last restart. I thought I made the right decision."
Hendrick said he had no favorite in that situation, and hoped only that Gordon and Kahne did not wreck
each other.
"I
know Kasey, he needed a win, and he ran awful good today," Hendrick
said. "But Jeff had the dominant car, so it all worked out."
Kyle
Busch finished second, 2.325 seconds behind Gordon, and was followed by
Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth. After the
race, NASCAR said Hamlin’s car had failed post-race inspection and the parts in question would be taken
to North Carolina for another look.
Joey
Logano was fifth in the highest-finishing car from Team Penske, which
brought Juan Pablo Montoya to the race in an effort to get the win.
Roger Penske has won a record 15 Indianapolis 500s, but is winless in
the Brickyard. Montoya was never a factor and finished 23rd.
Larson,
who grew up a Gordon fan, finished seventh and likened Gordon’s win on
Sunday to Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s season-opening win in the Daytona 500.
"To see Jeff Gordon win is pretty special — it’s kind of like Junior winning the 500 this
year," Larson said.
Kevin
Harvick, the polesitter and the driver with the car most everyone
thought would be tough to beat, was eighth and followed by Earnhardt and
rookie Austin Dillon.
Carl Edwards finished 15th hours after Roush-Fenway Racing finally confirmed he was leaving the team at
the end of the season.
In addition to his 1994 victory, Gordon also won at the track in 1998, 2001 and 2004.
He has 90 Cup wins, third on the career list.
He
said it took extreme focus over the final 10 laps not to prematurely
celebrate and cough away the win. It meant tuning out the crowd, which
was on its feet and cheering him to the finish.
"I was trying not
to let it get to me and not think about it too much," he said. "And yet
you can’t help it. It’s such a big place and such an important victory
and a crucial moment in the season and the championship, and those
emotions take over.
"This one is for all those fans throughout the
years and all weekend long — they’re saying ‘We believe you can get
(championship) number five.’ We got (Brickyard) No. 5!"