For the first half of the Geico 400, it looked as if Jeff Gordon was ready to make a loud statement as a contender for the 2012 Sprint Cup. He was running as high as 3rd place during the race. However, a stuck throttle on lap 188 sent him into the wall and clouded his title hopes going forward.
Gordon started 19th and moved up to 13th by lap 10. He entered the top-10 on lap 23 with a pass on Carl Edwards. He pitted under green on lap 46 and cycled through in 6th place due to a sub-12 second pit stop. He fell to 7th before a debris caution on lap 67. Gordon opted for two tires and departed in 5th place. He moved to 4th on lap 77, but fell back to 5th when Kyle Busch passed on lap 91. His slide back continued as Brad Keslowski and Mark Martin took spots from Gordon on lap 98. A debris caution on lap 100 brought the field to pit road. Gordon exited in 10th place after opting for four tires. He slipped back on the restart, but rallied back to 9th on lap 125. At the halfway point, Gordon ran in 7th place.
Casey Mears’ wall contact on lap 149 came in the middle of a green flag pit stop sequence. Gordon had yet to pit and moved up to 4th place. He came in under caution for tires and restarted in 4th. He dropped to 5th when Ryan Newman went by shortly after the restart, but re-took the spot from Newman on lap 167. However, on lap 188 Gordon slammed the turn 1 wall after the throttle stuck. He brought the DuPont Chevrolet to pit road with heavy right side damage and pulled into the garage. He was credited with a 35th place finish — his worst effort since Darlington Raceway in May.
Turning point
A stuck throttle on lap 188 sent Gordon into the wall and ended his day. The incident puts him in a major hole in the Chase standings.
JG’s comments
“I’m fine. We were having a good day. The guys did an awesome job in the pits and tuning on the car in the top-5. Who knows what we could have done with them at the end. But we had a throttle stick. It didn’t stick wide open. I let off the throttle and it just didn’t come all the way back. It was probably about half throttle which is still enough to do a lot of damage. We’re looking at what could have caused that — something in the return spring. In this (Chase), you can’t afford to have issues like that.”
source: Jeff Gordon Online
Race Results [PDF]
Driver Standings [PDF]
In-Car Audio
MP3 Download – with spotter chatter
filesize: 2.97mb
runtime: 25:54
[audio:http://www.scannerbytes.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/2012-09-15-Jeff-Gordon-GEICO-400-Chicagoland.mp3|titles=2012-09-15 – Jeff Gordon – GEICO 400 – Chicagoland]
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