How badly do you want it?
Jeff Gordon proved it would be checkers or wreckers as the laps wound down Tuesday in the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
And while his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson was able to catch him with four laps remaining in the race, Gordon pulled away and muscled the No. 24 Chevrolet to his 85th career victory — third on the all-time wins list behind Richard Petty (200) and David Pearson (105).
"We used it up there in the end and I was slipping and sliding," Gordon said. "The track really changed a lot after that rain delay (earlier in the race). Our car was real, real tight, and we had to free it up. I tell you what, that was a lot of fun racing with him. I was slipping and he was slipping.
"The throttle control was very tough there at the end. There were a couple of moments where I really thought he got us, but what an incredible victory for this Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet. . . . This team is on a roll. I don't care if it's Sunday or Monday or Tuesday; the NASCAR fans coming out like this to support us and to have a race like that — man, that's awesome. It feels awesome."
This was the Jeff Gordon of old. The Jeff Gordon who "refused to lose." The Jeff Gordon who won four titles so convincingly that he appeared to be the driver destined to equal and surpass the record seven championships held by the sport's elite — Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt.
But Gordon never really saw himself as "that guy." There was a time he didn't expect to be racing at age 40. And, now, at 40, Gordon is in championship form once again.
Despite a two-day rain delay that held up the start of the AdvcoCare 500, Gordon was ready to battle.
Although Gordon was extremely gracious while accepting the accolades from his own accomplishment and credited his team with the win, it's also clear he's tired of being the doormat for Johnson and the No. 48 team.
It's been a decade since Gordon won his fourth Cup title. And during that period, he watched Johnson, who he originally recommended for a job, win the past five championships with a team that was a carbon copy of the No. 24 squad. Though Gordon has remained competitive throughout the Johnson era — he won races in eight of the past 10 seasons and qualified for the Chase in all but one season since the program's inception in 2004 — until this year the only time Gordon put up a solid challenge against his teammate came in 2007 when he won six races and finished second in the points standings.
As part of team owner Rick Hendrick's grand plan, Gordon was aligned with crew chief Alan Gustafson two days after the 2010 season. It was the first time Gordon had experienced a crew chief change since he missed the Chase in 2005 and Hendrick replaced Robbie Loomis with Steve Letarte for the final 10 races of the season.
While it was assumed the crew chief and team swapping was solely to benefit Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the No. 88 squad, Gordon prospered from the start of the season. Two races into the schedule, he and Gustafson went to Victory Lane at Phoenix International Raceway. Although spring was marred by two crashes, Gordon came back at Pocono Raceway in June and appeared to be back in championship-contending form. In the past 10 races, his average finish is sixth.
"The way things are going, the way the team has rejuvenated me and the confidence they have in me and the confidence I have in what I'm doing now, anything is possible when you've got this guy as a crew chief," Gordon said, referring to Gustafson. "I've been trying to step it up for 10 years. I think that the Chase format is definitely more challenging. Those 10 tracks are significant ones.
"I feel like we've had good years, and even when I go back to, what was it, '07, when we battled with Jimmie and won races in the Chase and everything else, but we still couldn't get it done. To me, it was more about how can I play a role as a driver and give the feedback to Alan and his group and get myself settled in with this team and make sure that I'm doing the job that I'm capable of doing and that I feel like they think that I'm capable of doing."
Tuesday, Gordon held off Johnson by 0.598 of a second. Tony Stewart, Kurt Busch and Carl Edwards rounded out the top five. Certainly the aforementioned, along with Matt Kenseth, Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski, will be stout contenders for the Chase. But as the final 10 races wind down, the title could very easily come down to a battle of Gordon vs. Johnson — very reminiscent of 2007.
To win the title, Gordon will have to knock Johnson and the No. 48 team off the top.
"Everybody recognizes how strong they are, and that you can never count them out, and those guys are running really strong right now as well," Gordon said of Johnson and his team. "And I think the last couple of weeks we've been able to send a great message to all our competitors of how strong this team is, how good our race cars are.
"This race team is unbelievable right now. Those last two pit stops were as good as it can possibly get on pit road. The race car today was as good of a race car today as you could have asked for.
"We're having a blast out here right now. I'm just excited to go to the racetrack. It doesn't matter where we go, our cars are competitive, we're having a blast out there and I think we have more to come when this Chase starts."
The good
Stewart posted his first top-five finish in the past six races with just one event remaining before the Chase. In the final 20 laps of Tuesday's race, he jumped from eighth to third.
"We battled a lot of adversity to get back up there," Stewart said. "But I'm really proud. They say we gained 8-1/2 seconds on the leaders on the last run there. You look at this thing (car) and look at the front of it and look at how beat up it is.
"I'm very proud of these guys; they gave me a great race car."
Stewart, who has been in the cellar of the Chase standings the past four weeks and entered Atlanta Motor Speedway 21 points inside the top 10, gained two points and now leads 11th-place Brad Keselowski by 23 as the tour heads to Richmond International Raceway this weekend.
The bad
Dale Earnhardt Jr. was never a factor in Tuesday's race.
He started 29th and, by Lap 91, had already been knocked off the lead lap by Gordon, the eventual race winner. Earnhardt was able to get the free pass and return to the lead lap on Lap 134. While Johnson was able to come from behind the No. 88 Chevrolet to battle Gordon for the win at the end, the best Earnhardt could muster was 15th before finishing 19th.
"It was not a good day," Earnhardt said. "We didn't have a good car. We worked on it a little bit and had a couple decent runs where we were competitive, but just fought the car all day long and just couldn't make anything happen."
Despite Stewart's third-place finish, Earnhardt still maintained ninth place in the points standings. He currently has a two-point advantage over Stewart but has just a 25-point cushion over 11th-place Keselowski, who locked in to at least a wild-card Chase berth based on his three wins this season.
Neither Earnhardt nor Stewart has been to Victory Lane in 2011.
"We lost a little bit of ground and it's a little bit tighter going into Richmond, but we still feel pretty good," Earnhardt said. "But it doesn't matter if we can't figure out how to make the car run, it don't matter where we are."
The ugly
Clint Bowyer's Chase hopes likely ended at Atlanta Motor Speedway after an altercation with Juan Pablo Montoya on Lap 240 that sent the No. 33 Chevrolet into the wall.
Bowyer, who started the race second and led eight laps, was 11th at the time of the incident, which actually started with Montoya tapping the back of him one lap earlier.
While Bowyer acknowledged his car was tight coming off the corner, he didn't appreciate Montoya's style of racing.
"You can't race around the jackass," Bowyer said. "You never can. Anybody in this sport knows what you're up against when the No. 42 comes up. He dive-bombs the starts and bullies his way up in there, and before you know it, he's in the way and wrecking with somebody, and unfortunately I was the victim this week. It's just a shame. We're out here racing for a spot in the Chase. He's out here racing for nothing. I'm tired of it. Everybody in the garage area fights him. He's just an idiot."
But Bowyer wasn't done with his rant about Montoya.
"He races everybody that way. That is why he sucks," Bowyer continued. "You can't race that way in this sport, plain and simple, and I'll call him out for it. I think that is how about everybody in the garage knows what they are up against anytime that 42 is around. He is like a pinball out there because he is a bully. There has got to be some give and take. . . . It is just frustrating. I knew what I was up against . . . racing against him. It doesn't help my situation."
Bowyer returned to the track in the closing laps but had to settle for 36th. He fell to 14th in the points standings.
Montoya, who finished 15th on Tuesday, said via Twitter: "We made some real progress with car. I heard that Bowyer wasn't too happy. I guess next time he'll give me a little room."
Numbers game
9: Cautions during the race
19.7: Percentage of race run under caution
21 points: Lead Johnson has over Kyle Busch
35: Lead changes by 14 drivers
146: Laps led by Gordon at Atlanta
198: Cup wins by Hendrick Motorsports
Say what?
Gordon on his title hopes: "I think this is turning out to be a great year. All of our engineers, the awesome pit crew. Those last two stops were money. When you can have a race car that drives like that one, it makes me look like a hero."
