Gordon wins, enters championship picture

Associated Press

MARTINSVILLE, Va.

Jeff Gordon used an unprecedented chairman’s selection to get into the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship 48 hours before the opening race.

Now Gordon is trying his hardest to parlay that exemption from NASCAR chairman Brian France into a fifth title.

Gordon pulled into the championship picture Sunday with a win at Martinsville Speedway, his first of the season, to move from fifth to third in the Sprint Cup standings with three races remaining. Not too bad for the guy who started the Chase as the 13th driver in the field when France decided Gordon had been denied the ability to fairly race his way into the 12-driver field by the manipulations of at least three other organizations at Richmond.

“I don’t like how we got in it, being an added 13th team,” Gordon said. “But we’re certainly not going to say ‘No, we won’t take it.’ We wanted to be in it. We feel like we were in a position to earn our way into it, and I think that this team would have performed like this whether we were in it or not.

“To me, that decision just meant that what we’re going to be racing for is a championship instead of for ourselves and pride.”

The win was Gordon’s eighth career victory at Martinsville, but first since he swept the two races at the track in 2005. He’s tied with Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson for Martinsville victories, but both trail Richard Petty (15) and Darrell Waltrip (11) on the career list.

Most important, though, is that he’s just 27 points behind the leaders in the race for the Sprint Cup.

Matt Kenseth and Johnson left Martinsville tied atop the standings headed into Texas Motor Speedway. Gordon is third in the standings, with Kevin Harvick 28 points out and Kyle Busch 36 points behind.

“I do feel like it’s plausible,” Gordon crew chief Alan Gustafson said. “I think we can go win these next three races, and I think that anything can happen. It’s not going to be easy, never is easy, it’s not going to be easy for them, either.”

Kenseth led a race-high 202 laps and was out front on the final restart with 77 laps remaining and Gordon lurking in third. Gordon stalked him for more than 50 laps, thinking to himself, “What would Jimmie Johnson do, or better yet, what would Richard Petty do?” before finally making the pass for the lead with 21 laps remaining.

Gordon didn’t look back in snapping a 32-race losing streak dating to last year’s season finale.

“Matt drove a really first-class caliber race today and I didn’t know if we were going to get him, but it sure was awesome when we finally did and just kind of hoped there were no cautions,” Gordon said.