Jeff Gordon won Saturday night’s race held at Lowe’s Motor Speedway after an exciting race with fuel problems for Gordon that made him think he would not finish the race.
Despite all his concerns, Gordon made it to the finish line for his sixth win of the season, and staked his claim on the Nextel Cup title. After that incredible day for Gordon’s team, Hendrick Motorsports, he declared: "We needed to get to the finish. We had such a hard time getting to the finish, whether we were wrecking or having a mechanical problem."
Jeff Gordon
After several years of bad luck on this track Gordon finally won with a little help from Jimmie Johnson, who had an uncharacteristic spin, and a gentleman’s agreement from his teammate Kyle Busch, who could have wrecked him on a late restart but instead raced him clean. Ryan Newman, who bizarrely spun by himself while leading made another gift to Gordon, but soon after that his Chevrolet developed a pickup problem that had Gordon afraid he was running out of fuel as the race headed to a two-lap overtime shootout following Newman’s spin.
Jimmie Johnson’s Chevrolet (after the spin)
Gordon said: "Jimmie Johnson, I’m not sure what happened to him. He had the field covered. But when I saw he had problems, I thought it was an opportunity for us." And he took advantage of that opportunity. He passed Busch with 50 laps to go and was running away with the race until a late caution brought out the red flag and forced team owner Rick Hendrick to lecture Gordon and Kyle Busch on the importance of not wrecking each other.
Jeff Gordon & Kyle Busch
After Kyle Busch agreed not to wreck Gordon the race went perfect until Newman scooted by both Hendrick cars on the outside and grabbed the lead until his bizarre spin when Gordon inherit the lead. Although Gordon believed he would not finish the race because of his fuel problem, he pulled away from Clint Bowyer and Busch for his first win at the suburban Charlotte track since 1999.
I found this video of the last 9 Laps of the 2007 Bank of America 500 – Charlotte Race on YouTube. I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I!
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