Race Not the Pits for Gordon After All

Jeff Gordon’s car wasn’t really broken, but it needed plenty of fixing.

Every time it went into the pits Sunday at North Carolina Speedway at Rockingham, there was tinkering to do, and most of the time, it came out running a little better.

After the third stop, it ran best of all, and Gordon found himself an unlikely visitor to Victory Lane after his second consecutive win in the Goodwrench 400.

“I just sat there in the car for a moment and thought, ‘What the heck am I doing here?’ ” Gordon said. “I’m not much for betting, but early in that race I would have bet a million dollars I would be the last person in Victory Lane today.”

He had started fourth but slipped far back into the 43-car field as he struggled with the chassis of his Chevrolet.

He labeled the changes that crew chief Ray Evernham made “miraculous.”

“It was real, real loose at the beginning,” Gordon said. “I think everybody out there got to see me sideways because they were all passing me.

“It’s really easy to get frustrated. I didn’t say a lot. I didn’t want to think a lot either. But Ray is always telling me, ‘Don’t give up, we’ve got a long way to go.’ If today doesn’t prove that, nothing ever will.”

Coming out after his third pit stop of the 393-lap race, Gordon suddenly had the fastest car on the 1.017-mile oval. In fewer than 30 laps, he shot from 28th to 13th and then kept moving up.

Gordon took his first lead on Lap 199 and outran a squadron of new Ford Tauruses. He led six times for 73 laps, including the final 31, and averaged 117.065 mph.

Tauruses finished second through seventh and were far better all day than any General Motors product, except Gordon’s Monte Carlo.

Rusty Wallace was second, trailing by 1.281 seconds.

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Cory McClenathan covered the quarter-mile of Firebird International Raceway at Phoenix in 4.627 seconds and 319.71 mph to beat Jim Head in the top fuel division of the NHRA’s ATSCO Nationals.

McClenathan also recorded the fastest speed in NHRA history during the first round of eliminations at 322.92 mph.

Chuck Etchells took the funny car title in an all-Camaro final, driving 4.944 seconds at 312.82 mph to beat Ron Capps.

Warren Johnson took the pro stock title with a run of 6.974 seconds at 197.49 in a Pontiac.