Race
Name -
Track
Name
One year ago:
Jeff Burton won
this one too, while Jeff Gordon brought the #24 car
home in seventh.
Link
-Race
By Kelly
Morris
Jeff Gordon
started this race in the 14th place next to Stacy
Compton. Although he started 14th, Gordon moved up
quickly into the top ten and showed that he had a
pretty good car early on. After a few pitstops Jeff
had climbed into third place behind pole sitter
Casey Atwood and Rusty Wallace. On lap 133, things
went downhill for Gordon as he had a problem with
the air hose during a pit stop which forced him
back to 13th place. This problem unfortunatly
affected the rest of the race. Track position
proved to be crucial at this hot and slick
racetrack. The whole race, there were lots of talk
about the tires Goodyear had brought. Starting with
Bobby Hamilton and Sterling Marlin, a bunch of cars
had tires blow out and cause problems. This
eventually took out race leader Rusty Wallace on
lap 185. He was able to keep racing but was
relegated to a 15th place finish. On lap 194 Casey
Atwood had the same problem while leading the race.
This was the young rookie's best showing of the
year and ended in bitter disappointment.
After a few more
pitstops Jeff had made his way back up to the 7th
position fighting a loose handling race car all
day. Lapped traffic was also a problem and hindered
Gordon from passing other lead lap cars. Jeff
Burton had a good car all day and when Wallace and
Atwood went out, was sitting pretty until another
Wallace, Mike Wallace gambeled on a two tire stop
to beat him out of the pits on lap 242. Mike
Wallace proved to be tough competition but with
nine laps to go Burton used his Phoenix experience
to pass Wallace and win the race. Title contender
Ricky Rudd finished third, gaining 15 points on
Jeff Gordon but Gordon finished an amazing 6th,
with passing Ricky Craven and Robby Gordon in the
closing laps giving us Gordon fans a heart attack
with the hard racing that was going on between the
two Gordons!
This was Jeff
Burton's second straight Phoenix win and was his
second win this season. "I'm real proud of our
team, because a lot of teams wouldnt have held up
through what we've been through," said an excited
and jubulient Burton.
Jeff Gordon now
leads the points by 380 points and his lucky number
is 24th ironically. If he can finish 24th in the
remaining races, he will win his fourth title. "We
did what we had to do for the championship but I'm
certainly not happy with it," Gordon said. "We had
real good track position early on in the race and
that's what it took. We had a good car and we just
need to keep fine tuning on it and keep up with the
race track. Unfortunately we got behind and just
couldn't make up enough. But we came back to sixth.
So we'll take that."
Next week they head
home to North Carolina for the Pop Secret 400 at
The Rockingham Speedway. Jeff finished 4th in the
spring race and is looking to pick up his 7th win
of the season there.
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