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2nd For Gordon Feels Like Win

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 3, 2008

FORT WORTH, Texas - Jeff Gordon started on the pole at Texas and led the first 15 laps. Then he lost the handling on the No. 24 car and eventually fell a lap down.

"Typical Texas, we just started losing the handle on it as the sun went down," Gordon said. "Lost that track position on one run where we got real loose."

Gordon got back on the lead lap when he was the beneficiary of a caution on Lap 264 of the 334-lap NASCAR Sprint Cup Dickies 500 and worked his way back to a second-place finish behind Carl Edwards.

"You can't apologize for finishing second on a day like today," Gordon said. "That was like a win."

But Texas is still one of the two active tracks where Gordon, the four-time Sprint Cup champion with 81 race victories, has never won. The 1 1/2 -mile high-banked track is also where Gordon has his only two last-place finishes in 543 career races, including April.

Gordon has only two more chances to avoid his first winless season since he was a rookie driver in 1993.

The next race is at Phoenix, where Gordon didn't win until 2006, and Homestead, the other track where he still hasn't won a Cup race.

"We're not going to give up, that's for sure," Gordon said. "Just like going for the pole at Texas, we're doing everything we possibly can."

PABLO PUSHED, GILLILAND PARKED: Juan Pablo Montoya was again contending for a top-10 finish, and like a week earlier in Atlanta got knocked out of the race. This time, it didn't seem like an accident.

Montoya's No. 42 Dodge was damaged beyond repair when he slammed into the wall after David Gilliland plowed into the rear end of Montoya's car on Lap 264 - the caution that got Gordon back on the lead lap.

"It's very simple. I bumped him earlier when he almost put me in the wall," said Montoya, who was running 10th at the time of the crash. "Then he just came out of the corner and just wrecked me. It's just frustrating."

Gilliland insisted the accident occurred when he "misjudged" trying to let Montoya get by him out of the second turn onto the backstretch.

"It's a shame that it happened. I hate that Juan's got a tore-up race car," Gilliland said. "My spotter said I was clear and I slid up in front of him and he ran in the back of me and then going down into Turn 1 and 2 it was the same thing. Then I went up the track to let him go and just kind of misjudged my run coming down back across the track. I was gonna let him go."
NASCAR apparently thought otherwise, parking Gilliland's car for the rest of the race.

SPARKPLUGS: Edwards' victory made him the first driver to sweep both Cup races at Texas in the same year, following his victory in April. ... Brad Keselowski, making his first Cup start for the Hendrick team, finished 19th. ... Cars owned by Jack Roush have won seven of the 16 Cup races at Texas. All five of his cars finished in the top 11 on Sunday. ... In the drivers' meeting Sunday, before even talking about the race, NASCAR event director David Hoots reminded everyone in the room about the presidential election and told them to make sure to vote Tuesday. ... Jeff Burton, Gordon, Bobby Labonte and Mark Martin are the only drivers who have taken part in all 16 Cup races at Texas Motor Speedway, which opened in 1997.

The Associated Press

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