Just Call Gordon the King of the Road

For years, NASCAR teams have brought in road racing specialists for races at Sears Point’s Infineon Raceway and upstate New York’s Watkins Glen. They call them “ringers.”

The biggest ringer of all, however, may be one of their own.

Jeff Gordon, a Nextel Cup regular for 11 seasons, gave a performance Sunday in winning the Dodge/Save Mart 350 race here before an estimated 103,000 fans that stamped him as NASCAR’s greatest road racer. Not since Dan Gurney, who was the original “ringer” when he won five times at Riverside International Raceway three decades ago, has one driver so dominated road circuits.

His average speed for the 218.9-mile race, 77.456 mph, was also a record.

It was the four-time Cup champion’s fourth win over Infineon’s 10-turn, 1.99-mile hillside road course, and the eighth of his career on the road. It was also the third time he has won here from the pole.

There was never a doubt during the 110 laps that Gordon would bring home the No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet in front. He set a track record of 94.303 mph in qualifying and led a record 92 laps. Only once was his car passed on the track -- and it didn’t last long.

When Gordon and fellow front-row starter Rusty Wallace brushed fenders while battling for the lead as the green flag came out, Kurt Busch muscled his Ford past them both going through the uphill second turn.

Before another lap had passed, Gordon dazzled Busch with a late burst of speed as they approached the hairpin Turn 11 and outbraked him to regain the lead. From then on, no one passed Gordon.

(Although Infineon is a 10-turn course, the final turn is known as Turn 11 because that was its original designation before the course was changed. Because of its significant position, similar to Turn 9 at Riverside, it is still Turn 11).

“I know it probably looked easy, but it was no gimme,” said the winner, who collected $388,103 for his 2-hour 49-minute 34-second drive. “I was so nervous all weekend that we were going to mess it up somehow. We had to fight for it.”

Two Chip Ganassi team Dodges, driven by Jamie McMurray and road racing “ringer” Scott Pruett, finished second and third.

Said an exasperated McMurray: “With 10 laps to go, [Chip Ganassi] said, ‘Don’t give up, go get him.’ I thought, ‘I don’t know what you think that I’ve been doing.’ I’d been trying as hard as I could for 100 laps. I just didn’t give up all of a sudden.”

The other non-Nextel outsider, Boris Said, finished sixth.

Both Pruett and Said were winners on the road in sports cars last weekend at Watkins Glen, N.Y. Pruett teamed with Max Papis to win Six Hours of the Glen in Ganassi’s Lexus Riley, while Said and Bill Auberlen won the GT category in a BMW M3.

After spending nearly three hours in the hot and exhausting Nextel Cup race, Said climbed out of his car, received hydration at the medical center, changed uniforms and went out and won the Motorock Trans-Am race -- another 51 laps that took an hour and 15 minutes. Tommy Kendall was second.

“This was just a blast this weekend,” said Said, 41. “I’m tired, but it’s a good tired. I could go right out and drive again if I had a hamburger first. I’m hungry, but I loved running all three races.”

Said also drove a Southwest Series race Saturday, leading all the way until the final two laps when he spun out.

Michael Waltrip, forced to start from the rear in the main event because his crew changed engines between qualifying and the race, finished fourth, his best career finish in 17 starts at Infineon.

Jimmie Johnson, Gordon’s teammate, finished fifth.

Wallace, among the leaders the entire race, was fourth when his Dodge ran out of gas on the final lap. With 27 cars on the lead lap, it dropped him to 28th place.

The other Gordon, defending champion Robby (no relation), had as much disaster as Jeff had success.

After starting 24th, Robby was moving up when he lost his left front wheel and rammed front-first into the tire wall in Turn 10. After hobbling back to the pits, he got a new wheel and set out again.

Five laps later, he pitted again, this time to replace a sway bar. On Lap 81 he broke another sway bar, cut a tire and headed to the garage.

“When the tire falls off, you grind the sway bar arm off it,” he said. “And we couldn’t get a sway bar arm on. Then we tried to get one on and we didn’t get it on good enough, and it popped a tire. You know, that’s just how it goes some days. When you make a mistake, it just kind of snowballs.”

Still determined to finish, he came back out, many laps behind.

Shortly before Jeff took the checkered flag, Robby pulled to a stop across the track from the grandstand, waited a few moments, and then cruised across the finish line for a 34th-place finish, 10 laps back of the winner.

“We woke Jeff up last year when we won both [road] races, here and Watkins Glen. They ran an awesome race and controlled the whole weekend,” said the off-road racing veteran from Orange.