This Brickyard 400 Victory Is Special One for Gordon

As Jeff Gordon lined up to start the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the last thing he expected was a victory.

The NASCAR Winston Cup series leader knew he didn’t have the fastest car on the track to begin the race Sunday and never thought it would be good enough to make him the first three-time winner of one of NASCAR’s biggest events.

“We started the race with a lot of doubts in my mind, that’s for sure. I thought I had the slowest car out there at one time,” Gordon said, laughing.

He can afford to joke around now. After some great pit work by his Hendrick Motorsports crew, Gordon, who turned 30 a day earlier, surged to the front and celebrated his birthday with a checkered flag, solidifying his lead in the championship chase.

“Well, I had to win it because my crew chief was going to wring my neck if I didn’t because I was chewing him out so bad at the beginning of the race,” the three-time Winston Cup champion said.

Crew chief Robbie Loomis and the rest of the crew spent most of the 160-lap race on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s 2 1/2-mile oval making adjustments on the No. 24 Chevrolet.

“I said to Robbie, ‘I want to be careful to not get this too far out of whack on our setup because I think all we need to do is just get up front.’ And I believed if we got the track position we’d be pretty good,” Gordon said.

They got it right just in time.

A two-tire pit stop gave Gordon track position and he took full advantage, passing gambling Sterling Marlin for the lead on a restart 35 laps from the end.

With a full house of 320,000 spectators jammed into the grandstands--many of them cheering for the former Indiana resident--Gordon was able to control one more restart and stay out front for the 56th victory of his Winston Cup career.

“At the end, when we took two tires, it was absolutely the perfect thing to do,” Gordon said. “The car drove great once I got out front. This is the best way of celebrating my birthday.”

Gordon, who started 27th in the 43-car field, didn’t break into the top 20 until nearly a third of the race was gone.

“You start the race with a car as bad as we did today and get a win like this, man, that’s special,” said Loomis, who became Gordon’s crew chief at the start of the 2000 season.

Marlin, running a fuel strategy that would have allowed him to run to the end without stopping, took the lead when all the other lead-lap drivers pitted during a caution period on Lap 132.

“It was our only shot to win the race,” said Marlin’s crew chief, Tony Glover. “You can’t line up eighth or ninth and win the race.”

Kenny Bernstein raced to his 58th career NHRA victory, beating David Grubnic in the top-fuel final in the FRAM-Autolite NHRA Nationals at Sonoma.

Del Worsham raced to his third funny-car victory of the season, beating Jim Epler. Tom Martino earned his fourth career pro-stock victory, beating Mike Edwards.