Jeff Gordon won his 85th Sprint Cup race at the Atlanta Motor Speedway by winning the AdvoCare 500. With the win Gordon becomes takes the third position in all-time wins behind David Pearson (105 wins) and Richard Petty (200 wins). The race was delayed for two days due to Tropical Storm Lee which caused storms over the area both Sunday and Monday. The race was slowed a couple of times for drizzle including a short red flag but the day belonged to Gordon.
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[/media-credit]Although Gordon dominated the race leading a race high 146 laps of the scheduled 325 but had to hold off a hard charger in Jimmie Johnson who closed the gap to under a car length as the laps wound down. Gordon’s lead over his friend and team mate was over 2 seconds with about 20 laps left but both battled loose race cars and Gordon held him off. It was an epic battle and Johnson came off turn four trying to catch Gordon almost sideways. Johnson said afterwards, “I’m sure glad I had some dirt racing experience there because I sure needed it to survive that. It was fun.”
“I have always liked him as a driver,” said David Pearson, next on Gordon’s march up the wins list. “He is smart, takes care of his equipment and when it is time to go, he gets right up there with them. Reminds me some of the way I drove. … He has been the ‘head honcho’ for a long time in NASCAR. He was good out of the box and has been very good ever since.”
Everyone recognizes how strong they are and you can never count them out, Gordon said in media center afterwards. “In the last couple weeks we have been in battle with them. I’m excited we we’re on a half mile track last week and led so much and then came here and won.” Gordon added, “It was so much fun, it was so slick. I have a lot of respect for Jimmie , he’s a five-time champion. We have great cars right now.” Gordon spoke of how the race unfolded, “All of a sudden with 15 to go it got lose and here he comes. We’re having a lot of fun right now and we can’t wait for the chase.”
This was the culmination of the Sprint Summer Showdown that had Brad Keselowski, Marcos Ambrose and Paul Menard in a position to win $1 million for themselves, a fan and the charity of their choice. The closest one was Keselowski who finished 6th. After the race Sprint announced that they would donate $10,000 to each driver’s charity of their choice.
Tony Stewart, fighting for a place in the chase made up 8 seconds at the end of the race finishing in a surprising third place at the end. Stewart was excited with the performance but noted that there was still work that needed to be done.
