Gordon ran up front much of the day at Talladega before he was collected in the “Big One” on lap 137. He finished 39th, his worst finish of the year, 32 laps down, but held on to the lead in the Sprint Cup points standings.
There are things in life that just irritate a person. There are calls for me to worry about man-made global warming when I got snow falling outside in the month of May. There are three hours of television devoted to a two-minute horse race. There are entertaining races from Talladega, with big names leading, big names wrecking, only to have the thing won by Denny Hamlin.
From the wild knock out qualifying that netted Brian Scott the pole position to the crazy green-white-checkered race finish, here is what was surprising and not surprising in the 45th annual Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway.
We are only a quarter of the way through the 2014 season and there have already been more memorable finishes than all of last year. At Daytona, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. held off a hard charging Denny Hamlin to win his 2nd Daytona 500. Two weeks later at Las Vegas, Brad Keselowski passed Dale Earnhardt, Jr. on the last lap to score the victory.
Gordon led 173 of 400 laps at Richmond, but his quest for his first win of the season fell short. He finished second behind Joey Logano after a spirited four-car battle for the win during the final laps. Gordons leads the Sprint Cup points standings, five ahead of Matt Kenseth.
1. Jeff Gordon: Gordon took the lead on a late two tire pit stop, but was unable to hold off Joey Logano, with four tires, down the stretch at Texas. Gordon’s runner-up finish, his second of the year, moved him to the top of the points standings.
One week after tempers flared at Martinsville between Brad Keselowski and Kurt Busch, tensions eased at Texas, where neither driver showed signs of hunting down the other on-track or elsewhere. A wide gap in car performance between the two drivers during Monday’s race allowed the rolling boil of anger to slow to a simmer, even if only temporarily.
