NASCAR News | May 3, 2010

Jeff Gordon is irrelevant?

By Jenna Fryer
May 3, 2010


Richmond, VA — Everybody had an opinion when it came to the so-called “feud” between Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, but only one stirred any serious debate. When analyst Brad Daugherty said on Showtime’s “Inside NASCAR” that Gordon has “almost become irrelevant” during Johnson’s current reign, more than a few eyebrows were raised.

Gordon, like Johnson, is a four-time champion. Only five others have more than his 82 victories, and his $111 million in career earnings are a NASCAR record. Nothing Gordon does is irrelevant, and there were plenty of us who were certain that Daugherty’s assessment was surely going to aggravate a driver who is clearly annoyed right now with playing second fiddle to Johnson.

Not so much, it turned out.

Gordon, surprisingly, agreed with Daugherty’s opinion.

“I would say me and 41 other guys out there, absolutely,” Gordon said last weekend at Richmond International Raceway. “When somebody dominates the sport like that, he’s taken a majority of the guys out of the picture. That is what is amazing to me that he doesn’t have the media exposure and some of the fan following and some of those things more than he does because I feel like he’s done everything he possibly could do. I would agree with that, and we haven’t had the package to compete with him. That’s what I’m excited about this year. I feel like I do.”

Gordon has absolutely shown so far this season that he’s put himself back in the picture. But after losing to Kyle Busch in the closing laps of Saturday night’s race at Richmond, he also raised a legitimate question among those watching his re-emergence as a serious challenger to Johnson’s throne:

1. Can Gordon close-out a race anymore?

That’s a legitimate concern considering Gordon failed to win a race he was leading late for the fourth time this season.

His role in the first loss at Las Vegas can be debated because an ill-timed caution took the race out of his hands. In that instance, Gordon was running away with the race when a caution put pit strategy into play. Gordon, the leader, got two tires on the final stop to maintain track position, but Johnson went the opposite way with four tires to give him the fresh rubber needed for the final 34-lap run. So, yeah, four tires usually beat two and Johnson stole a race that day that had belonged to his teammate.

But there’s no similar excuse for losses at Martinsville, Phoenix and Richmond, which were simply a case of Gordon getting beat in three frantic final pushes to the finish. Martinsville and Phoenix were decided in green-white-checkered finishes in which Gordon didn’t execute. He played bumper cars with Matt Kenseth on the restart at Martinsville, giving Denny Hamlin the hole he needed to squeeze through for the win, and spun his tires on the restart at Phoenix to allow Ryan Newman a come-from-nowhere victory.

Richmond was a bit different, in that a clean race that had just three cautions through the first 364 laps was clouded by three yellow flags in the final 36 laps. Gordon was clearly good on long runs, but those three late stoppages gave Busch and everyone else a chance to beat him in a short sprint.

So when the race was decided by a final five-lap burst, Busch was able to pass Gordon in less than one lap to extend Gordon’s winless streak to 39 races.

“A little disappointed again that we are coming up short, but we are getting plenty of practice,” Gordon said after. “It’s a little disappointing we haven’t won some races yet. If we keep doing this, those will come. We’ve got to keep putting ourselves in position.”

He’s been there, but only has two runner-up finishes and a pair of third-places to show for it so far. Maybe this weekend at Darlington Raceway, where Gordon has seven career victories and hasn’t finished lower than fifth since 2004, could be his breakthrough.

2. So what’s the deal with crew chief Steve Letarte?

Fans have been quick over the past few years to blame Letarte for Gordon’s shortcomings, even as the driver has ardently defended his crew chief.

Every single time Gordon has been asked about Letarte, he’s done nothing but insist that he’s the right crew chief for the job. That hasn’t changed despite a two-year slump, and Gordon last weekend supported Hendrick Motorsports’ efforts to sign Letarte to an extension.

“I feel good about it,” Gordon said. “This is a guy that’s been at our organization for a long time. I think he and I are really, really connecting this year and it’s showing with our performance on the track. I think things are going great so I don’t see any reason why not”

HMS last week locked in crew chiefs Alan Gustafson (four years) and Chad Knaus (five years) to lengthy extensions, and Letarte confirmed he’s had conversations with owner Rick Hendrick about his own deal. In the final year of his current contract, the HMS lifer said he doesn’t want to work for any other race team.

Bottom line: Letarte is the right crew chief for Gordon, and blaming him for Gordon’s failures is taking the easy way out.

People seem to forget what Letarte did during the magical 2007 season, when Gordon won six races and recorded an unbelievable 30 top-10 finishes to set a NASCAR record. He won two Chase races, had a ridiculous 5.1 average finish in the Chase – and still lost the championship to Johnson.

In any other year, Gordon would have won the title, and he and Letarte had every reason to believe there would be more seasons like 2007. But for a combination of reasons – driver and crew chief both to blame – the production dropped off in 2008 and only slowly began to improve last season.

Now the duo seems back on track, able to run with Johnson and dominate the way they once did. Like it or not, Letarte is a vital part of that program and will likely finalize a deal soon to keep his spot atop the No. 24 pit box.

3. What the heck happened to Dale Earnhardt Jr.?

If Earnhardt is truly on a resurgence this season, he better not have any more races like Saturday night in Richmond, where he was off badly and finished three laps down in 32nd.

That tied Earnhardt’s worst finish of the season, and was the first time since California that he’s finished outside the top 16. The performance dropped Earnhardt outside the top 12 in the standings. He’s now 13th.

The night went awry, Earnhardt said, after an early adjustment to the car got him “way off,” and crew chief Lance McGrew had to play catch-up the rest of the race. It apparently played a role in McGrew’s decision not to take the “wave around” that put the bulk of the field back on the lead lap, but kept Earnhardt one lap down as he pitted for adjustments.

McGrew called Earnhardt in again on the next caution, and the No. 88 was then running at the back of the field. Battling with Bobby Labonte for 31st, the two made contact that caused Earnhardt to get a flat and essentially end his night.

Although he dismissed being frustrated with the finish, Earnhardt knows there can’t be more nights like Saturday if he’s going to make the Chase this season.

4. That “wave around” rule sure changed the race …

And it’s debatable if that’s a good thing.

Busch was so dominating in the early part of Saturday night’s race, he lapped almost everybody. There were just eight cars on the lead lap at the time of the second caution. Under a rule established last summer in the double-file restart change, any car that doesn’t pit under caution can get a lap back if every car on the lead lap does pit.

So when Busch led the seven other lead-lap cars down pit road, almost everyone took advantage of the new rule.

On one hand, it upped the count to 27 cars on the lead lap, thus restoring some competition to what was shaping up to be a runaway Busch victory. But the flipside is the debate over whether all those cars deserved such a gift. Why should they be rewarded for being so far off at the start of the race?

Crew chief Dave Rogers, who won his first Sprint Cup Series race when Busch later wrapped it up, could have kept all those cars a lap down by not bringing Busch into the pits. Asked later why he didn’t – because, wouldn’t it be easier to beat just seven cars instead of having to contend with 26? – Rogers said he preferred track position over eliminating the competition.

“It would have been great to keep that many cars a lap down,” he said. “But it would have been selfish. Everybody behind us was going to pit. If we stay out, we keep all those guys down. Then the seven guys behind us are going to drive by us. It’s not worth it.

“I didn’t think keeping those cars a lap down was going to help us win the race. I thought keeping the track position was going to help us win the race.”

The rule may only fall under such a glaring spotlight at short tracks, where drivers are able to lap each other rather rapidly. But it will be interesting to see how it comes into play going forward now that everyone has seen how it can work.

5. So what else happened at Richmond?

      » Well, Michael Waltrip Racing had a terrific night, with all three of its teams finishing inside the top 15.

Martin Truex Jr. was raving about the mid-race adjustments that brought a bad car back to life for a seventh-place finish. Marcos Ambrose finished a season-best ninth, and David Reutimann capped a strong weekend with a 15th-place finish that left him unsatisfied.

      » Richard Childress Racing proved its short track program is among the best in NASCAR, as Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton finished third and fourth, respectively, while Clint Bowyer was 12th. Harvick’s seventh top-10 run of the season pushed him back into the points lead.

      » Denny Hamlin was uncharacteristically off all weekend at Richmond, his home track and the most important place on the circuit to the Virginia native. He struggled through every practice session, qualified 30th, and although he made adjustments that moved him through the field, it was easily the worst performance of his career at RIR. He failed to lead a lap for the first time at Richmond, finished 11th and deemed the performance “unacceptable.”

      » Lastly, Juan Pablo Montoya didn’t shy away from discussing his dislike of Richmond, which has never suited his driving style. Then he went out and finished sixth. Next up is Darlington, where he’s hit the wall in all three of his previous visits. Can we expect another top-10 finish?

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