Gordon, Johnson save their best for last at Talladega

TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Jeff Gordon didn’t lead a lap Sunday until the last one. But that, of course, was enough to win the UAW-Ford 500 and take the lead in the Chase for the Nextel Cup playoff standings.

Gordon and teammate Jimmie Johnson finished 1-2 with one of the most bizarre, masterful and trying strategies ever displayed at NASCAR’s biggest, wildest track. And they entrenched themselves as co-favorites to win the Chase. Johnson is in second place, only nine points behind Gordon.

They rode near the back of the field for most of the race, giving themselves time and space to avoid the massive crashing that had been expected in NASCAR’s first pairing of the Car of Tomorrow design with traditionally frantic restrictor-plate racing.

“That’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in a race car,” Gordon said. “I like to think I’m patient, but this was beyond patience. I’d never yawned in a race car before. But I yawned riding back there today.”

They waited until after “The Big One” -- the seemingly inevitable multi-car wreck here -- to begin working toward the front. This time the pileup involved 11 cars with 44 laps remaining of the 188 on 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway.

Other than that, “I thought the race was actually relatively calm,” said Gordon’s crew chief, Steve Letarte.

“Today wasn’t a typical Talladega race,” Gordon said. “Guys were being a lot more careful.”

That was evident from the start when Gordon, Johnson and third-place Chaser Clint Bowyer actually dropped into a whole separate drafting line, far behind the front-runners. Even up front, extreme caution was the rule of the day, with eight of the nine yellow flags coming out because of blown tires or engines rather than driving mistakes.

With five laps to go, Johnson and Gordon went to the front, 1-2, and until the final lap, “I really thought Jimmie was going to win the race,” Gordon said. “I didn’t think anybody was going to get around him, let alone me.”

But Gordon got help from a serendipitous source. Tony Stewart, fourth in the Chase standings, had chosen to avoid trouble all afternoon by running up front. As the white flag flew, Stewart tried to make a horrific run back to the front.

Gordon whipped his Chevrolet up high and alongside Johnson, and at that moment caught a tremendous bump-draft from the onrushing Stewart to draw alongside Johnson.

“Luckily when I got by and Jimmie tried to block me, [Stewart] was there and had nowhere to go,” said Gordon, who earned the 80th win of his Cup career and his 12th restrictor-plate victory. “He drilled me, and he’s the one who pushed me up front.”

Ed Hinton covers auto racing for Tribune newspapers.

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NEXT RACE

Sunday: Bank of America 500, Concord, N.C.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

The Chase

Nextel Cup standings through 30 of 36 races:

*--* Driver Points Behind 1 Jeff Gordon 5,690 --- 2 Jimmie Johnson 5,681 9 3 Clint Bowyer 5,627 63 4 Tony Stewart 5,536 154 5 Kevin Harvick 5,488 202 6 Carl Edwards 5,485 205 7 Kurt Busch 5,475 215 8 Kyle Busch 5,430 260 9 Denny Hamlin 5,428 262 10 Martin Truex Jr. 5,390 300 11 Matt Kenseth 5,372 318 12 Jeff Burton 5,354 336 *--*