Jeff Gordon finished 12th at Dover International Speedway and advanced to the next round of the NASCAR Chase. Gordon ran in the top-10 for the balance of the day, but lost spots in the closing laps. He advanced by a mere 2 points over the final cut off line in the opening round.

Gordon started 10th and dropped to 12th just before a caution for Jeb Burton’s spin on lap 3. He used the outside line to his advantage on the restart to re-enter the top-10. He advanced to 9th by lap 15, but dropped a spot to Kyle Busch on lap 20. He held the 10th spot until the competition caution on lap 40. Pit stops followed with Gordon restarting in 8th place. He ran 6th on lap 50 after taking a spot from Jamie McMurray. He slipped to 7th when Kurt Busch went by on lap 70, and fell to 8th when Dale Earnhardt Jr passed on lap 105. A debris caution on lap 111 brought pit stops. Gordon exited pit road in 12th place after a slow entry to his stall. He ran 10th when the next caution came on lap 191 for Jeb Burton’s crash. Gordon gained a spot on the restart and ran 9th when a debris caution brought pit stops on lap 232. Gordon opted for four tires and restarted in 11th.

After the restart, Gordon re-entered the top-10 and eventually took 9th from Matt Kenseth on lap 283. He took 8th from Kyle Larson at the 300-lap mark. A caution for AJ Allmendinger’s spin on lap 311 brought the leaders to pit road. Gordon restarted in 10th place on lap 316. He advanced to 9th prior to a caution with 46 to go for Brett Moffitt’s wall contact. Gordon restarted 9th after a four-tire change. A caution for Landon Cassill’s engine with 29 to go slowed the field. Gordon stayed out and restarted 9th. He lost spots in the final laps and came across the line in 12th place. Gordon advanced to Round 2 of the Chase by a mere 2 points over the cut off line.

JG’s comments
“I was freaking out there at the end. We were pretty solid in the top-10 all day long. I’m really proud of this team and what they’ve accomplished this year. We’ve gone through a lot and it hasn’t been pretty. That’s kind of the way today was. We knew we needed to be top-10, 11th, maybe 12th if we were lucky. We did that until the end. The caution came out and people swapped up their strategy. We just got ate up on the restart and were falling back. I didn’t know what was going to happen. It wasn’t easy, but I’m real proud of this entire team. Now we reset and see what we can do in the next three races.”

ON THE NEXT ROUND
“We definitely gained some positives from this round. I thought our performance at Chicago was fantastic. I’m looking forward to the next 1.5-mile track we can get on, which is Charlotte. Hopefully we can have a similar kind of performance, but with the results I think this team is capable of.”

source: Jeff Gordon Online

Race Results [pdf] [html]
Driver Standings [pdf] [html] [jpg]
Owner Standings [pdf] [html]
Chase Standings [html]

Jeff Gordon Dover In-Car Audio

MP3 Download – with spotter chatter
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Jeff Gordon Dover Photos

Jeff Gordon Dover In-Car Audio

Jeff Gordon posted a 12th place finish in the AAA 400. He hasn’t finished inside the top-10 in the last four races at Dover Speedway. Gordon faced an uphill struggle from the outset after starting 34th. He ran as high as 9th during the day, but was never a factor for the lead. He slipped to 9th in the series standings and trails the leaders by 19 points.

Gordon started 34th and gained six spots in the first 4 laps to move into 28th place. He gained four more spots and ran 24th on lap 10. By lap 17, he was on the cusp of the top-20 as he took a spot from Juan Pablo Montoya. Light rain slowed the field on lap 19 with Gordon in 20th place. At the competition caution on lap 40, Gordon ran 19th. Pit stops followed with Gordon exiting in 26th place. He re-entered the top-20 on lap 70, and took 19th from Tony Stewart on lap 73. Gordon moved up tp 14th before a round of green flag pit stops on lap 112. After a 13-second stop, Gordon cycled through in 13th place. He took 12th from Mark Martin on lap 121 and closed in on Kevin Harvick for entry into the top-10. A caution for contact involving Casey Mears on lap 136 slowed the field. Gordon opted for two tires and restarted in 9th place. He dropped to 10th on lap 156 when Harvick went by. Battling a tight handling condition, he dropped to 12th by lap 160. A debris caution brought the field to pit road on lap 175. Gordon opted for four tires and restarted 13th. However, he struggled on the restart and dropped to 17th on lap 190. As the run progressed, Gordon moved back up to 14th on lap 210.

Gordon re-entered the top-10 on lap 235 with a move around Harvick. Following a round of green flag pit stops Gordon ran in 15th place. A caution flag for rain came on lap 255 and allowed Gordon to pit to top off the gas tank. He made his way to 14th on lap 280 and ran 13th when the caution waved on lap 300. With 85 laps to go, Gordon moved into 12th place. Mike Bliss’ crash with 47 laps to go slowed the field and brought the leaders to pit road. Gordon advanced to 11th when Greg Biffle crashed with 39 laps to go. Gordon finished the race in 12th place and dropped to 9th in the series standings.

Road ahead: Kansas Speedway looms on the horizon — following a mid-week jaunt to the Arizona desert for a test session at the revamped Phoenix International Raceway. “Kansas is a good track for us,” Gordon said. “I’m very excited about going back there. I feel like Kansas is where we really turned the corner this year with our 1.5-mile program. We ran really strong there and I felt like we had a shot at winning that race.”

source: gordonline.com

Race Results
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In Car Audio

MP3 Download 
[audio:http://www.scannerbytes.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Jeff-Gordon-2011-10-02-AAA-400-Dover.mp3|titles=Jeff Gordon – 2011-10-02 – AAA 400 – Dover]

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MP3 Download with spotter chatter
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Photos

Dover Pit Stop

In the pack

Run Jeff, Run!

Cool Shades

September 27 – – Jimmie Johnson’s summer seemed to create a window of opportunity for his rivals to take the Sprint Cup title from him for the first time since 2005. However, Johnson does his best work in the Chase, and flexed that traditional autumn muscle with a dominant victory in the AAA 400 at Dover Speedway. The win propeled Johnson to within 35 points of the series lead after a disappointing effort to start the Chase at Loudon.

Jeff Gordon’s day was one of “almost.” He started 15th and worked his way into the top-10, before moving into the top-5 by lap 100. His high water mark was 3rd place, but handling woes on longer runs hindered his march forward. On the final pit stop, the crew turned a 17.7 slow time and Gordon lost five position. He finished in 11th place and dropped 83 points behind Denny Hamlin. More troubling for Gordon is that it has now been 9 races since his last top-5 finish — that’s his longest top-5 drought since Robbie Loomis was his crew chief in 2005.

source: gordonline.com

Race Results
Driver Standings

In Car Audio

MP3 Download
[audio:http://www.scannerbytes.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Jeff-Gordon-2010-09-26-AAA-400-Dover.mp3|titles=Jeff Gordon – 2010-09-26 – AAA 400 – Dover]

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Photos

September 27 – – Jimmie Johnson mastered the Monster Mile with a sweep of the Cup Series races at Dover International Speedway in 2009. Johnson led the most laps en route to the victory in the AAA 400. He closed to within 10 points of Mark Martin for the series points lead as he tries for an unprecedented fourth consecutive championship.

Jeff Gordon’s day was an exercise in frustration as he appeared on the way to a runner-up finish.  However, a pit road problem in the closing stages pushed him back in traffic, before he rallied to finish a distant 6th.  He moved from 10th to 8th in the series standings, but trails Martin by 122 points with just 8 races remaining.

The race was marred by a spectacular crash on lap 32. Several cars slowed entering the corner.  Joey Logano checked up after Kasey Kahne slowed, which brought Tony Stewart into the rear of Logano’s car.  The rookie driver spun down the track, then back up and was hit again by Reed Sorenson, which sent Logano barrel-rolling down the track.  The wreck also collected Robby Gordon and Martin Truex Jr. and required a nearly 24-minute red flag for cleanup.

Johnson lost the top spot briefly to Kurt Busch during the first half of the event, but took firm control before the halfway mark.  Johnson won all races off of pit road — the advantage of having the first stall — and coasted to the victory ahead of Martin.

source: www.gordonline.com

Race Results
Driver Standings

In Car Audio

MP3 Download
[audio:http://www.scannerbytes.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Jeff-Gordon-2009-09-27-AAA-400-Dover.mp3]

Photos

Post Race Comments

“I’m really disappointed.   I feel like we had a second-place car and when you have a second-place car you’ve got to finish second or contend for the win.  We had a problem with a gun on pit road and I don’t know what you do about that but we’ll try to fix it for the next time.  It’s just nice to run good.  The No. 48 was in a league of their own but I felt like we were second best.”

WAS THE LAST RUN INDICATIVE OF HOW DIFFICULT IT WAS IN TRAFFIC TO PASS?
“I already knew that earlier in the race.  It was very challenging.  It was like driving a different race car when you get fifth or sixth on back.  We had already made adjustments to the car to be up front like we had been.  You take that risk when you adjust the car.  We were trying to make it better and compete with the No. 48 and then you get behind, I think we were seventh, eighth or ninth or something like that.  We were just a sitting duck.  We couldn’t go anywhere.”

A SIXTH-PLACE COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE AFTER SEEING THAT SCARY WRECK AT THE BEGINNING.
“It certainly was an improvement over last week.  It can always be worse.  You have to remind yourself of that but right now I don’t want to remind myself of that.  I will tomorrow or the next day but right now I’m just disappointed.  We just can’t get things to go our way.  That’s what it takes to win a championship.  We’re certainly not out of it yet and we’re going to keep fighting hard like we did today and like we did last week.  We’re eighth in points and we’ll just keep on going.  I think the next two tracks are really good tracks for us so I’m looking forward to those.”

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO CHANGE THAT AND MAKE IT CLICK, IS A LITTLE BIT OF LUCK AS WELL?
“I believe you make your own luck.  Putting yourself in position, communication, preparation and just hard work.  I don’t know what happened to the gun.  We’ve got to find out why that happened and we’ll try to fix that for next week.”

YOU PICKED UP TWO SPOTS IN THE STANDINGS BUT YOU ARE STILL 122 POINTS OUT, IS THAT INDICATIVE OF HOW TOUGH THIS CHAMPIONSHIP IS?
“Certainly.  We saw Mark Martin win and finish second here and he’s tough.  Jimmie Johnson dominated today and finished fourth last week.  I think a lot of people thought that Hendrick Motorsports could be the team to beat and right now they certainly are.  We’re racing them plus other guys.  We’ve got work to do.  That’s part one.”

HOW PHYSICALLY TOUGH WAS TODAY’S RACE?
“It was pretty tough.  To me this tire was not as sketchy as the ones we’ve had during the past but it was certainly different the way it picked up rubber under the cautions.  It really made the restarts challenging to get grip and then the double-file restarts made it a challenge as well.  I’m surprised we didn’t see an outside groove really materialize like we have in the past.  This tire turns good and has pretty good grip so it allows you to run around the bottom a lot more.  I don’t know that might be something to think about for the next time.  It certainly worked good for Jimmie.”