Gordon Is Ready for the Chase

Failing to make NASCAR’s Chase for the Nextel Cup championship last year was a big motivating factor for Jeff Gordon this season.

“You don’t realize how much it stings until guys are battling for the championship and you’re not part of it,” said Gordon, whose last of four Cup titles came in 2001.

At 35, Gordon has lost little of his competitive fire.

“That’s why we race,” said Gordon, who will start alongside pole winner Kevin Harvick in today’s Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire International Speedway. “That’s what has kept me in it for all these years. I love being competitive out there for race wins and for championships.

“Knowing you don’t even have a shot at it was pretty disappointing. It just allowed us to refocus our energy on what we needed to do to get more competitive. It wasn’t so much about not being in the Chase as much as it was not being competitive enough to go for a championship.”

Gordon acknowledges his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet team “didn’t perform” last year. “I just wanted to see our performance get better. That’s what’s going to bring the chemistry and glue back together within the team.”

Even with that motivation, though, Gordon didn’t wrap up a spot in the 10-man, 10-race Chase until last weekend at Richmond. And he didn’t exactly storm into the playoffs.

Brake problems at Richmond relegated Gordon to a 31st-place finish and he slipped from fourth to ninth in the points. But that was good enough to get into the running for another title.

“Take out Richmond and we’ve been pretty consistent for the past month or two,” Gordon said. “We’ve fought when we needed to and put good results together when we were capable of it. That’s what we’re supposed to do. For ourselves, we’d like to go out there and step it up.”

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Johnny Benson got past Kyle Busch an instant before a caution flag froze the field and never relinquished the top spot, racing away to a victory in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at New Hampshire International Speedway.

It was the fourth victory of the season for Benson, who had not won a truck race before this year.

Nextel Cup star Busch, making only his fourth truck start of the season, took the lead on Lap 121 on a pit stop during one of the 12 caution flags in the 200-lap race and was battling to hold off Benson on Lap 167 when Mike Bliss hit the wall. That brought out another yellow flag and NASCAR’s scoring showed Benson had the nose of his Bill Davis Racing Toyota just ahead of Busch’s Chevrolet.

Benson, who led four times for 145 laps, pulled away on the ensuing restart and stayed in front as pole-winner Mike Skinner got past Busch to take second place, finishing 0.691 seconds -- about six truck-lengths -- behind the winner.

Series points leader Todd Bodine finished fourth, followed by David Starr, Ron Hornaday Jr. and Rick Crawford.

“The only way to catch Todd is to do what we did today,” said Benson, the series runner-up. Benson gained 30 points on Bodine and trails by 124 with seven races remaining. “Todd and those guys have been consistent all year, but we’re doing everything we can to get ‘em.”

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A rule kept Jim McGill from being declared the fastest qualifier for a super late model race at Irwindale Speedway, but it ended up helping him win the race.

McGill and Dan Moore recorded identical times of 18.198 seconds for their best qualifying laps. Moore was declared the top qualifier because he had more points in the season-long standings.

However, under the track’s inversion system, Moore started fifth and McGill fourth. McGill moved into second on the second lap, then took the lead on the 24th lap when he passed David Beat. Beat took the lead from McGill after a restart on the 44th lap, but McGill regained the lead on the following lap and kept it for the remainder of the 50-lap race on the half-mile track to win for the second time this season.

McGill’s winning margin was 0.419 of a second.

“He was better from the middle off,” Beat said. “I was a little too free and he stuck pretty good.”

Beat’s second-place finish enabled him to shave four points off division leader Van Knill’s lead in the season-long standings. Knill leads Beat, 629-593.

The super late models season concludes with two races on Sept. 30. The winner of each race receives 50 points, the second-place finisher 48 with two points less for each subsequent place.

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-- Steven Herbert