Jeff Gordon posted a 10th place finish at Kansas Speedway and moved to 7th in the NASCAR points standings, with a 7 point gap over the Chase cutoff line with one race remaining in Round 2.

Gordon started 6th and struggled at the outset as he dropped to 11th by lap 7. He slipped to 12th by lap 20. The first caution waved on lap 29 for JJ Yeley’s crash. Pit stops followed with Gordon exiting in 15th place. Handling issues persisted as Gordon fell back to 19th by lap 55. On the next round of caution flag stops, chassis adjustments were made with Gordon restarting 25th on lap 70. He gained two spots over the next 20 laps to run 23rd on lap 90. Kyle Larson’s spin on lap 109 brought out the caution. Gordon had to make a second pit stop under the caution for loose lug nuts and restarted in 23rd place. At the halfway point, Gordon re-entered the top-20. The next caution came on lap 155 for Austin Dillon’s cut tire. Gordon gained 4 spots on pit road and restarted in 16th place.

He entered the top-15 on lap 165 prior to a caution for Clint Bowyer’s crash. Gordon came to pit road for additional adjustments and restarted in 12th place. He moved to 11th with 80 to go when Brad Keselowski hit the wall. Gordon slipped back to 12th when Ryan Blaney passed a few laps later. Gordon came to pit road for a green flag stop with 49 to go and cycled through in 12th place. The next caution waved on lap 244 for Justin Allgaier’s wall contact. With just 12 cars on the lead lap at the time, Gordon came to pit road. He restarted in 12th with 19 laps to go. The next caution came with 4 laps to go when Joey Logano spun Matt Kenseth while battling for the lead. Gordon came to pit road for tires and restarted in 10th place for the green/white/checkered, and that’s where he came across the line to complete the event.

JG’s comments:
“We just grind it out. I’m extremely proud of the team for never giving up, fighting so hard, having solid pit stops, and trying as hard as we could. We qualified really well and it had me optimistic, but, boy, we really struggled in [Saturday] practice. We were hoping today we would hit on something, but we just never did. We really struggled with the front grip. Every time we tried to get it to turn, we didn’t have much rear grip. It was a struggle. We held onto the lead lap — which I don’t know how — but we did. At the end we were able to take 2 tires and had a pretty good restart. I thought we had the 2 car at the line, but they said he beat us. Still, all in all, a never give up effort. Somehow we pulled off a top-10.”

ON THE POINTS
“Every point means something, it just doesn’t mean anything as far as our approach for Talladega next week. I’m confident in our race cars and our race team. I’m excited about our chances of actually winning there. I just don’t like the chances of being in a wreck, because they’re usually high. But we’re going to approach it where we’re going to be aggressive and race hard. We’ll see where the points end up.”

source: Jeff Gordon Online

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

Jeff Gordon Kansas In-Car Audio

MP3 Download – with spotter chatter
Run Time: 46 minutes
File Size: 5mb

Jeff Gordon Kansas Photos

Jeff Gordon Kansas

It wasn’t a long-awaited win for Jeff Gordon in the Hollywood Casino 400, but a solid 3rd place finish moved him to 4th in the NASCAR standings, just 32 points from the lead. Gordon’s 429th career top-10 moved him past Dale Earnhardt for the 4th highest total in NASCAR history.

Gordon started 14th and ran well ahead of a lap 1 crash involving Danica Patrick. He advanced to 12th by lap 35 and ran 11th when the caution waved on lap 42 for Michael McDowell slowing on the track. Gordon opted for two tires on the pit stop and restarted in 4th place. He used the outside line to take 3rd, but returned to 4th when Jimmie Johnson passed on lap 69. Gordon came to pit road for a stop on lap 85, just prior to a debris caution on lap 87. Although the caution trapped him a lap down, he stayed out for the wave around to get back on the lead lap. He restarted in 28th place on lap 92. Gordon steadily gained spots and ran 21st at the 100-lap mark. Gordon had advanced to 18th before the caution waved on lap 118 for Landon Cassill’s engine. Pit stops followed with Gordon opting for two tires and restarting in 14th place. He ran 12th at the halfway mark just prior to a caution for a wreck involving Ryan Newman and Justin Allgaier.

Pit stops followed with Gordon opting for two tires. He restarted 11th on lap 144 and moved into the top-10 prior to the next caution for Travis Kvapil’s spin on lap 146. Gordon moved around Carl Edwards and Dale Earnhardt Jr on lap 152 to take 7th place. However, he battled a tight handling condition and dropped to 11th by lap 165. A caution for David Gilliland’s wreck with 97 to go brought Gordon to pit road for adjustments. He changed four tires and restarted in 19th place. Gordon gained 4 spots after the restart to run 15th, prior to a caution for Casey Mears’ wall contact on lap 180. Kyle Busch’s spin brought out another caution with Gordon moving up to 13th place. The next caution waved with 68 laps to go when Carl Edwards made contact with Busch, which sent him into the wall and destroyed the front of the M&M’s Toyota. Gordon came to pit road for four tires and restarted in 28th place. He came to top off the fuel with 61 laps to go.

Gordon worked through race traffic and ran 18th with 50 laps to go. He moved up to 11th place prior to a debris caution with 40 to go. Gordon came to pit road for two tires and restarted in 3rd place because he didn’t have to wait on fuel as the other drivers did. On the restart, Gordon moved around Jeff Burton to take the runner-up spot. He ran more than a second behind race leader Kevin Harvick before a caution for Brian Vickers’ crash slowed the field with 25 laps to go. He restarted on the inside of Harvick with 19 to go. Kurt Busch moved to the outside to pass Gordon in turn 1. Gordon settled into 3rd place behind Busch where he finished the race.

Turning point
Topping off the fuel with 61 laps to go allowed Gordon to spend less time on pit road when he came in for the final with 40 laps to go.

JG’s comments
“It was a great day for our team. Ever since the Chase started, they’ve been bringing me awesome race cars. We’re having a lot of fun out there. Everything could have gone wrong for us today, and there at the end it actually went right. So, that’s nice to have.”

ON POST-RACE DISCUSSION WITH KURT BUSCH

“It’s not a NASCAR race if you don’t have a discussion with another driver about an incident on the track. These restarts are so tough. Everybody’s trying to get every position they can. I got in the outside lane one time and (Kurt) just came up. The next lap I got to his bumper and got him loose. That led to him wanting to run into me on the right side on my door. These cars are so sensitive aerodynamic-wise. You just can’t have any little damage like that. It did seem to affect our car. I just wanted to have a good civil conversation with Kurt, and we did. We’re really proud to finish 3rd today.”

source: Jeff Gordon Online
Race Results [PDF]
Driver Standings [PDF]

In-Car Audio

MP3 Download – without spotter chatter
File Size: 3.1mb
Run Time: 27:22
[audio:https://www.scannerbytes.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Jeff-Gordon-2013-10-06-Hollywood-Casino-400-Kansas.mp3]

MP3 Download – with spotter chatter
File Size: 4.6mb
Run Time: 39:50
[audio:https://www.scannerbytes.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Jeff-Gordon-2013-10-06-Hollywood-Casino-400-Kansas-with-spotter-chatter.mp3]

Photos

Matt Kenseth might be leaving Roush Racing at the end of the 2012 season, but he’s creating quite a final act with his second victory in the Chase. Kenseth scored the win at Kansas Speedway in an event that featured 14 caution flags because of the repaved track surface. Jeff Gordon struggled with handling on the final run of the day and finished 10th. He trails points leader Brad Keselowski by 51 points with just 4 races to go.

Gordon started 19th and moved up to 15th by the end of lap 5. He was running 14th when the first caution waved on lap 31 for Casey Mears’ wall contact. Gordon pitted for tires and restarted in 20th place. He moved to 17th but was unable to make significant headway before the next caution on lap 70 for AJ Allemdinger’s cut tire. Gordon opted for 2 tires and restarted in 7th place. He moved to 6th before a caution for Jeff Burton’s wall contact on lap 83. Gordon slipped to 9th after the restart, but eventually worked his way around Regan Smith to take 8th place on lap 110. Aric Almirola’s cut tire on lap 123 slowed the field. Gordon came in for tires and restarted in 4th place. Jimmie Johnson crashed on lap 136 to bring out the caution. Johnson got loose exiting turn 4 and backed the Lowes Chevrolet into the wall. Repairs were made on pit road which allowed Johnson to stay on the lead lap.

On the restart, Gordon moved to the runner-up position behind race leader Matt Kenseth. One lap later, Bobby Labonte’s wall contact slowed the field. Gordon dropped to 3rd on the restart before Danica Patrick’s crash brought out the caution on lap 156. He came to pit road for 2 tires and restarted 7th because of some drivers opting not to pit. Gordon dropped to 9th before a caution on lap 165 for Tony Stewart’s spin. A caution for Greg Biffle’s crash with 92 to go slowed the field with Gordon in 10th place. With 85 to go, Ryan Newman hit Kyle Busch and created a wreck in turn 4. With 54 laps to go, Almirola’s crash brought out the caution and the final round of pit stops ensued. Gordon restarted in 9th place after opting for 4 tires. He moved to 8th before a caution for Sam Hornish’s cut tire with 33 laps to go. Gordon dropped to 9th with 14 to go when Brad Keselowski went by. Two laps later Johnson went by Gordon to drop him to 10th place where he finished the event. It was Gordon’s 7th top-10 in the last 9 races.

Turning point
A four-tire change during the final round of pit stops didn’t work out to Gordon’s advantage. He battled handling issues in the late stages of the event and dropped to 10th place.

JG’s comments
“It wasn’t that bad. It was hard to pass you just couldn’t reach the edge of the grip level really easy. My car stuck pretty good so I had pretty decent grip on the restarts and we were able to make up some spots. We did pretty good strategy so all in all it was a decent day for us. I thought we could pull off a top five at one point, but we just didn’t.”

source: Jeff Gordon Online

Race Results [PDF]
Driver Standings [PDF]

In-Car Audio

MP3 Download
file size: 3.25mb
runtime: 28:20
[audio:https://www.scannerbytes.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/2012-10-21-Jeff-Gordon-Hollywood-Casino-400-Kansas.mp3|titles=2012-10-21 – Jeff Gordon – Hollywood Casino 400 – Kansas]

MP3 Download – with spotter chatter
file size: 4.35mb
runtime: 37:55
[audio:https://www.scannerbytes.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/2012-10-21-Jeff-Gordon-Hollywood-Casino-400-Kansas-with-spotter-chatter.mp3|titles=2012-10-21 – Jeff Gordon – Hollywood Casino 400 – Kansas – with spotter chatter]

Photos