Even a nice guy can boil over

Jeff Gordon not only is one of the most winning drivers in NASCAR history, he’s also one of the sport’s most polite and personable figures.

But you don’t get to be a four-time champion by being overly nice, which Gordon proved last weekend when he ignited a brief but highly publicized fight with Jeff Burton after they crashed in Texas.

As the drivers qualified Friday for the next NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Phoenix International Raceway, and moved closer to deciding the season champion, Gordon also said long winless streaks he and Burton have endured probably contributed to the Texas turmoil.

The fight itself “was a reflection of [Burton’s] stupidity” because Burton’s No. 31 Chevrolet collided with Gordon’s No. 24 Chevy moments after the caution flag came out at Texas Motor Speedway, Gordon said.

“I don’t care what kind of season we’re having or not having, if you get wrecked under caution you’re going to be really, really mad.”

But Gordon said close racing between the two drivers leading up to the wreck partly reflected “frustration with the way the season’s been going for a couple of guys that are very competitive, with great teams and [who are] not going to Victory Lane. That’s kind of what led to that situation.”

Gordon and Burton are among the 12 in this year’s 10-race Chase for the Cup championship playoff, but both are so far behind the top three in the standings -- Denny Hamlin, reigning champion Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick -- with two races left that neither has a realistic chance of winning the title.

In addition, Gordon and Burton have now gone 63 races and 75 races without a victory, respectively. And despite his four titles, Gordon -- who has 82 Cup wins in his career -- still has not won a championship since the Chase playoff format was introduced in 2004.

Gordon was the first driver to qualify Friday and he ended up 22nd-fastest, while Carl Edwards won the pole position in his Roush Fenway Racing Ford with a track-record lap of 136.389 mph on the one-mile Phoenix oval.

Hamlin, who leads Johnson by 33 points and Harvick by 59, qualified 17th. Johnson -- Gordon’s teammate at Hendrick Motorsports who has won four of the last six races at Phoenix -- will start 21st on the 43-car grid and Harvick qualified 29th.

Burton said after the Texas wreck that he didn’t intentionally hit Gordon’s car.

But he added, “When it all happened, I thoroughly expected to be in a physical altercation. I could tell by the gait in [Gordon’s] walk and by the look in his eye that he wasn’t coming down there to talk. It’s all funny now.”

After the crash knocked Gordon’s car out of the race, Hendrick took the unusual step of swapping Johnson’s pit crew -- which had struggled with early pit stops -- with Gordon’s crew, and the change was left in place for the season’s last two races, at Phoenix and Florida next weekend.

Gordon said he was “looking forward to helping the 48 crew rebound because I think that it’s been a really tough week for them.”

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james.peltz@latimes.com