“Incredible team effort.” Those three words from the mouth of Samsung 500 race winner Jeff Gordon summed up the day at Texas Motor Speedway. For the 4-time champion, it meant his 82nd career victory, the end of a protracted winless streak and a little vindication for the oft-maligned crew chief Steve Letarte.
For Carl Edwards and Dale Earnhardt Jr. – among others- teamwork altered the outcome in a way they’d rather forget.
That Texas-sized grin you see is worn on the face of Steve Letarte. If there’s been a crew chief out there who’s drawn greater fire for his driver’s fortunes than Tony Eury has for Dale Jr., it’s been Letarte for the 2008 performance of Jeff Gordon. Numerous Gordon fans spent their winters burning Pop-Tarts in effigy and clamoring for a shake-up on the “24″ team. Any doubts fans may have had that Gordon’s 2009 performance was a “flash” in the pan had those doubts put to rest as a 47-race winless streak ended- checking off of Gordon’s “Bucket List” one of two remaining active tracks at which he hadn’t won.
Look out Homestead.
In post-race interviews, Gordon said Letarte and his crew did a great job of adjusting on
the fly. He said he’d complain, the team would tweak accordingly, and then Gordon said the car started heading the other direction. After a little further re-adjustment, NASCAR’s 6th all-time leading Cup winner had the car he needed to hold off charges by teammate Jimmie Johnson, Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle and Tony Stewart- looking especially snappy on re-starts.
While teamwork worked for Gordon, problems on pit road proved the undoing of some of his top competitors. It was another day of frustration for Dale Earnhardt Jr., who actually had enough car to keep charging back after setbacks. Besides getting tapped by a loose Kyle Busch on a re-start, Junior also had a pit stop where he failed to see his sign and he missed his box.
One can only imagine what Earnhardt’s season might be if the “88″ team could cut down on the pit road pratfalls.
Another guy who had a rough day in the pits was Carl Edwards. He offered some particularly fierce competition for Gordon until a disastrous stop cost Edwards 10 spots coming off of pit road.
Mistakes also altered the fortunes of Greg Biffle- who rebounded to finish 3rd on the day, though Roush’s top finisher of the day believes he could have taken Gordon. Pole-sitter David Reutimann also fought through a pit-related miscue to finish 11th.
On the other side of the coin, teamwork put Jimmie Johnson in an excellent position to win. Johnson sat as far back as 18th midway through the race, but showing off a trademark patience in the pits to get the car right, the “48″ darn near ran Gordon down at the end. An unintended getting in the way by Max Papis made for ending the was a little more frantic for Gordon than it needed to be.
OTHER RANDOM OBSERVATIONS
Hats off to Tony Stewart for another brilliant day. Smoke said his team’s only downside was an inability to re-start quick enough to catch the other front runners. Kurt Busch logged another solid top 10 finish, though his car seemed to be tailing off towards the end. Mark Martin put in a nice top 10 day.
Don’t look now, but the switch to Earnhardt-Childress engines seems to be providing a boost for Juan Pablo Montoya. With a finish of 7th, JPM logs his second top 10 and he now sits just outside the top 12.
Matt Kenseth also gets an “A” for effort, plus performance. Kenseth had to fight to keep himself in the running after leading early in the race, but the race at Texas provided a nice rebound effort after his 2009 quest threw a rod on the short tracks. After some of what he went through, I think the “17″ will be more than happy to take the 5th.
In true Jeff Burton fashion- J.B. hung out at the back of the top 10 for a classic, quiet top 10 finish.
Sam Hornish, Paul Menard and David Stremme have to feel good about their top 20 efforts. Before hitting a few late race pot holes, Stremme and Hornish looked like they might even get a top 10- pretty nice when you consider what their seasons have been.
The “Murphy’s Law” Award has to go to David Ragan. Years from now, when people look at these race results, they’ll never know just how good he was this day.
For any RCR driver not named Burton- it was also a day they’d rather forget.
Kyle Who? was he in this race? Oh yeah, I guess there was that Junior deal. This day had to be a let down for “Wild Thing” after the day he had in the Nationwide race.
My “Rocky Balboa” Award has to go to Stremme for overcoming his brush with disaster to end with a finish of 14th. A younger David Stremme might not have overcome that.
Overall, I thought this was a better race than any I’d seen at TMS before. We had some great story lines and for the young race some good life lessons about teamwork and not giving up. In this fan’s estimation- Texas will never challenge Martinsville, Daytona or Talladega for thrills- but it’s a darn sight better than racing we’ve seen in other places.
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PHOTOS COURTESY OF GETTY IMAGES
{ 1 comment }
great write-up, it was a better race than it has been
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