Poignant Win for Gordon

Jeff Gordon said he came to the speedway at Martinsville, Va., to do his job, and as he climbed from his car into an embrace with Rick Hendrick in Victory Lane, doing it well never felt better.

Gordon won the Advance Auto Parts 500 on Sunday, turning NASCAR’s first visit to the track since a Hendrick Motorsports plane crashed nearby last fall into a tribute to 10 team members and friends who were killed.

“When you’ve got a guy like Rick Hendrick that you respect so much and you’ve seen what he’s been through, the ups and downs through his life and especially here last year, for him to poke his head in there and say, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you,’ and with that tremble in his voice, that impacts you,” a choked-up Gordon said.

“That tells you how meaningful this was.”

Hendrick’s son, Ricky, was among those killed in the crash.

Gordon, in a Chevrolet, said he had been focused on the race, especially after trailing by three laps very early because of a vibration. Then he saw Hendrick, and the implications surfaced.

“When he popped his head in there, it hit me like a ton of bricks.”

In winning the race by 0.593 of a second, Gordon worked his way back onto the lead lap with 223 laps to go and never stopped closing. Kasey Kahne took second in a Dodge.

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Warren Johnson became the oldest driver to win a professional drag race, and Tony Schumacher raced to his 23rd top-fuel victory at the O’Reilly NHRA Spring Nationals at Houston Raceway Park in Baytown, Texas.

Johnson, 61, took the pro-stock race, finishing in 6.714 seconds at 205.01 mph for the 93rd win of his career. He beat Jason Line, who clocked 6.735 at 204.29. Eddie Hill was 60 years old when he won in top fuel on July 21, 1996, at the Mile-High Nationals in Denver.