Gordon, Johnson to talk after tense track moments

Apr 19, 2010 - 10:56 PM By SCHUYLER DIXON Associated Press Writer

FORT WORTH, Texas(AP) -- Before a nine-car pileup sent his mangled Chevrolet to the garage Monday, Jeff Gordon circled Texas Motor Speedway with a comfortable lead and part of a perfectly round tire mark on his trademark No. 24.

The imprint was courtesy of a bump from Jimmie Johnson, a friend, teammate and rival who happens to drive a car owned by Gordon. The NASCAR Sprint Cup stars were battling for the lead when they made contact on a pass by Gordon about midway through the race.

The drivers with four series championships apiece were side-by-side again - this time in seventh and eighth place - for a key restart with 17 laps to go, moments before Gordon was at the center of a spectacular wreck that Johnson managed to avoid.

The late crash overshadowed a few tense track moments for the Hendrick Motorsports pair. Before Johnson left his mark on Gordon's car, Gordon was within inches of Johnson's bumper for a long stretch on the front straightaway.

They didn't hide their disappointment with each other after the race but said they would talk it through and move on.

"It's really good that we have the open communication that we do at Hendrick, through the good times and the bad," Johnson said. "So don't get the headline writers out saying, 'Trouble at HMS,' because it's really no big deal."

Things turned out much better for Johnson, who finished second to Denny Hamlin and expanded his points lead to 108 over Matt Kenseth. Gordon ended up 31st despite probably having the best car and is now 220 points behind Johnson, although he held on to fifth place in the points standings.

"He didn't like it a lot more than I didn't like it," Gordon said. "That's just hard racing. Just guys trying to go for a win. We're good enough friends and teammates that we'll get it over it."

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LET'S PLAY TWO: Kyle Busch, who took third, was the top Sprint Cup finisher among 15 drivers scheduled to handle all 801 miles of racing Monday. The 300-mile Nationwide Series race was held after the 501-mile main event.

Busch said his Sprint Cup finish was about 10 places better than the quality of his car, which was an interesting observation since he finished 10 spots behind where he should have in November. Busch was leading the fall Sprint Cup race when he ran out of gas with 2 1/2 laps remaining. He settled for 11th.

Busch ended up ahead of the big wreck that gobbled up Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and others because his crew decided to take two tires instead of four on the previous pit stop.

"We snuck out a third on them," said Busch, who has five top-10 finishes in 11 Cup races in Texas. "Last week (at Phoenix) we probably should have won the race and we got eighth. It's just give and take here and there."

The top four on the Nationwide starting grid ran the Cup race - pole sitter Joey Logano, Clint Bowyer, Busch and Carl Edwards. A wreck knocked Bowyer out of the Nationwide race before the halfway mark.

The last time there were 800 miles of NASCAR racing on one day was Oct. 11, 2003, in Charlotte. Jamie McMurray and Michael Waltrip ran all 534 Cup and Nationwide laps that day, and Kevin Harvick and Greg Biffle ran 533. McMurray, Harvick and Biffle were among the Nationwide drivers Monday.

Three drivers pulling double duty - Joe Nemechek, Michael McDowell and Mike Bliss - didn't make it to the 100-lap mark of the Cup race Monday. Reed Sorenson was out after 121 Cup laps.

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STARTS AND STOPS: NASCAR hasn't had the best of starts in 2010.

A pothole in the aging track at Daytona stopped the sport's biggest race twice for a total of 2 1/2 hours. The Texas race was the second time in just eight dates that the Sprint Cup race was moved to Monday because of weather.

Throw in two early-season off weeks, and "momentum" isn't the first word that comes to mind for a sport struggling with sagging attendance and TV ratings.

"The season hasn't developed the tempo that you typically expect," Texas Motor Speedway president Eddie Gossage said. "You need that soap opera week after week after week and the story lines going Sunday to Sunday to Sunday. It's just really unfortunate how things have occurred."

Gossage, always one to play up the drama, noted that one of the open weeks interrupted the season's juiciest story. Carl Edwards sent Brad Keselowski's car through the air in an intentional wreck at Atlanta after Edwards went flying in a crash caused by Keselowski early last year. Then those rivals had to wait two weeks to get back on the track.

"Just when it gets going, we've got an off weekend," Gossage said.

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IT'S IN HIS BLOOD: Mark Martin talked three years ago about the greatness of being semiretired. More time with the family. Sleeping in. Not having the daily worries of intense Sprint Cup competition.

So much for all that.

The 51-year-old returned to a full-time ride last year with Hendrick Motorsports and won five races, his most since 1998. He finished second in points behind four-time series winner Jimmie Johnson.

Talk of his future surfaced this week with news that Kasey Kahne would replace him in owner Rick Hendrick's No. 5 car starting in 2012. Before anyone could ask, Martin squashed retirement talk, declaring he planned to drive after Kahne takes his spot.

"If you compare all the other things that I could do with my time, there's no comparison," Martin said. "It is like a 10 and a zero. You know I'm really not all that good at anything else or maybe I would like it more."

Martin said he might consider being an owner as well when he leaves the Hendrick team.

"I'll find something else fresh, new and exciting to do," he said.

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SPARK PLUGS: Dale Earnhardt Jr. was in third place for the final restart with 17 laps remaining, but drifted back in the pack and settled for eighth. ... Jimmie Johnson led the 10,000th lap of his career on Lap 49. ... Four drivers have run all 19 Cup races in Texas: Jeff Burton, Jeff Gordon, Bobby Labonte and Mark Martin. Labonte, a Texas native, is the only one of those four without a win. ... The Monday start led to the first crowd under 100,000 for a Cup race in Texas. Attendance was estimated at 92,500.