NASCAR Cup Series

31 Moments of '14 No. 3: Gordon and Keselowski's Texas throwdown

Published Dec. 29, 2014 10:45 a.m. ET

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Tom Jensen

Editor's note: For the month of December, FOXSports.com will count down 31 moments that defined the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season. This is No. 3.

Just three weeks after the infamous Charlotte Motor Speedway post-race fight between Matt Kenseth and Brad Keselowski, trouble erupted again after the AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. And once again, Keselowski was in the middle of it.

On the first of two green-white-checkered restarts at the end of the race, Keselowski tried to dive between leaders Jimmie Johnson on the low side and Jeff Gordon on the high side. When he did, Gordon moved down to block him. The two made contact, with Gordon getting a flat tire that dropped him from second to 29th in the final running and ultimately cost Gordon a spot in the Championship Round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Johnson drove on to victory ahead of Kevin Harvick and Keselowski.

Afterwards, Gordon angrily confronted Keselowski on pit road. When Keselowski walked away from Gordon, Harvick showed up and pushed Keselowski back toward Gordon. Gordon grabbed Keselowski by the collar and a full-scale brawl ensued, with plenty of punches thrown.

Keselowski defended the move.

"That almost won me the race," said Keselowski. "It hurt somebody else's day. That's a shame. But the reality is there was a gap. You know, I'm not Dale Earnhardt or (Ayrton) Senna. I read how they raced, how great they were for this sport. They would sit here and tell you they would go for that same gap.  I'm not them, but I'm inspired by that, and I'm going to race that way."

Gordon, naturally disagreed.

"He's just a dips--t," Gordon said. "The way he races, I don't know how he's ever won a championship and I'm just sick and tired. That's why everyone is fighting him and running him down. Your emotions are high. That was a huge, huge race for us. We had the car and had the position."

Keselowski needed to win to advance to the final round. As it turned out, he finished third, but if he didn't attempt to make the pass, he had zero chance of winning. Was it reckless? Maybe, maybe not. But it clearly was his only shot at winning.

"I'm doing everything I can to win this championship, racing at 100 percent," said Keselowski. "That's something I'm not going to be ashamed for. If I was out there wrecking guys to do it that would be one thing. But I think a little bit of rubbing was probably how this sport was created, probably how it should move forward. I don't mind getting raced that way. I don't mind racing that way. I got a little rub there, too, at the end from the 4 car (Harvick).  That's just good racing."

For Gordon, it was disaster. Despite five top-two finishes in the Chase -- including the races immediately before and after Texas -- Gordon failed to advance to the Championship Round of the Chase. Keselowski didn't make the title round, either.

Texas race-winner and six-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson said the new Chase format ratcheted pressure up to an all-time high.

"When your only opportunity to advance is to win, he (Keselowski) had a bad race in Martinsville, he's got to do all he can to win," Johnson said. "So the system is breeding this. It was by design. I think (NASCAR Chairman and CEO) Brian France sat back and looked long and hard at this and was hopeful that these moments would happen.

"It's changing the way things take place on the track," Johnson said. "When I think back to when I started, we'd point people by, let them go. There was this gentleman agreement on the racetrack. Everybody told you to study Mark Martin, watch how he lets people go. That hasn't happened in years. We'll cut each other's throat any chance we get. It's just trending that way."

NASCAR ultimately suspended four Hendrick Motorsports crewmen for throwing punches on pit road and issued fines totaling $185,000, which the team paid. Gordon's crew chief, Alan Gustafson, was not happy about it.

"I just feel like there's a definite (message) ... team members aren't as important as drivers," Gustafson told FOXSports.com the following weekend at Phoenix International Raceway. "I think they made that clear. I personally feel a little bit like a second-class citizen, and I think a lot of our team members do, too. I hate (that) those guys took the brunt of it, which I don't really feel like they were responsible for, in my opinion. I don't think they went and initiated any of this, nor had that intention."

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