NASCAR: Jeff Gordon Captures 84th Career Win at Pocono

Jeff Gordon needed a win. I mean, all of the drivers need a win, but the four-time champion was slipping away from the top 10 and needed that insurance win to pretty much lock himself into this year’s Chase, one way or another.

Racin' with Russ - Not only did the Indiana driver need the win for Chase implications, but it ties him with two NASCAR greats for third in all-time wins, those being Darrell Waltrip and Bobby Allison. Just one more checkers for the seasoned veteran, once called "the Kid," and he will have locked down the sole owner of third all-time winner, right behind David Pearson and Richard Petty. Not too shabby for company, eh?

So, how did Gordon capture this latest, yet important win? He overcame polesitter Kurt Busch who led quite a few laps and a strong Carl Edwards who dropped out before the half with serious motor problems, dropping him to a 37th place finish.

Denny Hamlin led the most laps and looked like the guy to beat, but mechanical issues in the form of a flat tire set them down the order.

Busch had a very strong Dodge race car once again, but Gordon’s crew performed great pit stops to get him out ahead of Busch’s car and ran away to claim his latest checkers and fifth at Pocono.

The rest of the top five included the cars of drivers, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick. At the end of the race, Kyle Busch’s car was said to have failed post-race inspection, something about the height of the car being illegal. The car was to be taken back to the NASCAR R&D Center to make further assessments.

Edwards poor finish cost him 36 points on the day, yet remains on top of Jimmie Johnson, but only by six markers.

Pick ‘em Ups

This edition of truck racing took place on Friday night at the Texas Motor Speedway. Johnny Sauter put up a good battle with arch rival and multi-time champion Ron Hornaday Jr.

The final restart with just a few to go saw Sauter give it all away by crossing in front of Hornaday before the start/finish line. While Sauter crossed the line first, NASCAR black flagged the Chevy truck driver, handing the win to a very happy Hornaday.

Sauter was obviously upset after being set down to 22nd. He still maintains the points lead by 20 points over Cole Whitt.

The rest of the top five included Parker Kliggerman, David Mayhew, Brian Ickler and Joey Coultar.

Open-Wheel News 

The IndyCar series ran a rare double-header at Texas over the weekend with a pair of rapid 275-mile races. The first race qualifying was set by a separate qualifying session and Alex Tagliani taking the top spot, and while he did lead briefly, it was Ganassi driver Dario Franchitti who ran away with the first segment.

The second race lineup was done with some game show antics as the drivers picked their spots by the luck of the draw. This method was sour-graped by Franchitti who felt a championship battle should not start with a luck of the draw procedure.

Perhaps this came from his luck not being so good by drawing a 28th starting spot, compared to the second-round winner Will Power drawing a third.

All in all, a good show and something I believe all but Dario would like to see happen again. By the way, Dario finished seventh.

Across the Pond

No one would have thought the F-1 race in Canada would be the most exciting racing event of the weekend, but it certainly was.

Yes, Sebastian Vettel took yet another pole and led most of the laps. The difference in this one was a rain delay at the start, a two-hour delay one-third in, and Jensen Button coming from dead last to beat Vettel on the last lap when the German driver made a very rare unforced error with just a few turns to go.

LeMans Tid Bit

Without going into great details, I’d be remiss in not mentioning the results of the 24 Hours of LeMans race held over the weekend. The big battle is between the prototype cars, those of Peugeot and Audi were the ones to watch.

Two of the three Audi’s suffered horrific crashes with both cars totally destroyed, but drivers Alan McNish and Michael Rockenfeller were OK.

By the end of the very long twice around the clock event, the one lone Audi beat the top Peugeot by just 13 seconds! Amazing stuff.

From Rumorville

Open wheel and NASCAR driver Kasey Kahne is said to be interested in testing the waters of open-wheel cars such as Indy or F-1. Interesting? He’s no spring chicken, so if he is interested, he needs to get with the program right now. I’d love to see it. What’s your opinion of this idea? Drop us a line.

That’s it for this week. Next week’s RWR will review the results from Michigan for the Cupsters and Nationwide set, along with more racing news from around the globe.