Gordon still has the hottest car around

In the Hendrick Racing League, a level above the rest of NASCAR’s Nextel Cup series nowadays, great parity is developing.

Between Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, that is.

As they run away with this season, at least they’re neck and neck, back and forth, leaving at least some suspense week in, week out, as to which one will win.

Between them they’ve won four races in a row, five of the last six, a total of seven this season, and their Hendrick armada has won eight of the last nine.

It was Gordon’s turn Sunday, in the Dodge Avenger 500 at Darlington Raceway. It was his third win this year, to Johnson’s four, but for Gordon this made three of the last four. And Gordon leads the point standings with Johnson second.

Hendrick also remained undefeated through all five Car of Tomorrow races this year. Younger teammate Kyle Busch won the first one, Johnson the second, Gordon the third, Johnson the fourth and now Gordon the fifth.

Gordon won this time by staying out on the track, in a Chevrolet overheating so badly it was blowing geysers of steam during a late caution, while Johnson handed him the lead by ducking into the pits for tires.

From there, Gordon was in clean, cooling air under green, but had to slow down -- and heat up -- again during two more caution periods. When the green flag waved for the final time with 13 laps to go, Gordon knew he had no choice but to run wide open until the engine blew or the checkered flag fell.

Johnson came out of the pits seventh after his stop, blasted back to third, but then got held up by Ryan Newman, who’d stayed out along with Gordon and was running second just after the restart.

“Newman has a way of making his car very, very, very, very wide,” Gordon said in wry appreciation of the Penske Dodge driver who kept Johnson from making it another Hendrick duel at the end. “And he certainly did that today.”

After getting past Newman, Johnson got hung up in a duel for second with onrushing Denny Hamlin. With the help of lapped traffic, Hamlin won that fight, and wound up beating Johnson for second place. Newman the catalyst faded to fourth.

“That’s the way to win races!” Gordon yelped in victory lane, referring to adjustments all afternoon by his crew as well as nursing the overheating car to the finish by removing more and more tape from the grille as the afternoon wore on and heated up -- not to mention the risky call by his crew chief.

“Great call by Steve Letarte,” Gordon said of his 27-year-old pit boss’ firm command on the radio: “Stay out! Stay out!” at the moment leader Johnson turned toward the pit road.

Also, “The guys to thank are in the Hendrick engine shop -- there’s no way that thing ever should have made it,” Gordon said. “We were pegged on all the gauges ... when you see the water pressure go up that high and it’s spewing out water, there’s no way it should make it.”

Johnson said that even if he had it to do over, he’d pit again and give up the lead, because the odds say circumstances normally would go much better for him.

“Tires always pay off here,” Johnson said. “And if I was back in that position, I think I would go for tires again. It really amazes me how we weren’t able to get through traffic fast enough. And I think part of the problem was, the lap-down cars pitted for tires too.”

Hendrick is by no means dominating just in the Car of Tomorrow.

Johnson has two wins on intermediate tracks at Las Vegas and Atlanta. Gordon won a vastly different restrictor-plate race at Talladega, Ala., two weeks ago to surpass the late Dale Earnhardt for sixth on the all-time NASCAR winners list.

Many in the crowd threw beer cans at Gordon at the Alabama track, in anger at his 77th win.

But for his 78th, on Mother’s Day, “I didn’t have a one thrown at me,” he said.

This could have made nine wins in a row for Hendrick, had Gordon not slipped up and brushed the wall late in the race while dominating at Texas on April 15.

That cost Hendrick a shot at becoming the first team to win five consecutive races since Petty Enterprises in 1971. Now Hendrick has another four in a row and will go for the same Petty mark in the next Cup points race, the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte on May 27.

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Ed Hinton covers auto racing for Tribune newspapers.