In a lot of ways, Jeff Gordon’s strategy for the 2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup championship has been simplified now that he leads teammate Jimmie Johnson by just nine points following Sunday’s Pep Boys 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
He must finish ahead of Johnson in each of the next three races to win his fifth career Cup title.
No problem.
Piece of cake.
“Oh yeah, that sounds simple,” Gordon said. “When we came in with a 53-point lead, we didn’t feel like we had a lead and the pressure was on. Now, we have a nine-point lead and the pressure is on even more. All we can do right now is go out and put up the best numbers and performance that we possibly can on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and hope it’s enough.”
Gordon went from having a bad day to having a good day to having an OK day through Sunday’s race. He dropped to as low as 21st, but was running in the top five in the closing stages of the race before finishing seventh in what was supposed to be a green-white-checkered-flag finish that ended past the restart when Dale Earnhardt, Jr. lost the left-rear wheel and slammed into the first turn wall.
With only one attempt at a green-white-checkered, the race was over at that point and Gordon finished seventh.
But with Johnson winning the race, Gordon’s lead has been cut to nine.
“I feel like we’ve got the team and the equipment to do it, but those guys are tough and they are showing it every week,” Gordon said of Johnson’s team. “All I’m really focusing and concerned about right now is trying not to have the bad day.
“For a little while today, it looked like today was going to be that day. So to me, to be able to fight back and finish seventh, even though Jimmie won, it still was a great day for us, I feel like, and a great motivation for us going forward.”
Gordon’s approach is avoiding the one bad race that seems to happen to every driver in the 10-race Chase.
“If we come out of Homestead and we’ve got a points lead, then fantastic,” Gordon said. “If we don’t, then we did all we can do.”
It was an up-and-down race for both Gordon and Johnson throughout the long afternoon at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Gordon avoided several crashes, including one on lap 197 when David Stremme’s Dodge slammed into the second turn wall and drifted down the banking.
Gordon was able to get by the Dodge without hitting it.
Johnson had his moments in the race where he was as low as 13th, but when crew chief Chad Knaus made a gutsy call on pit road to only change two tires after Gordon changed four on lap 319, and another Hendrick driver, Kyle Busch, had a 19-second pit stop, Johnson was in the lead.
“We struggled today as well,” Johnson said. “It all flip-flopped at the end. I pay very close attention to the 24 (Gordon) and saw its struggles, but I knew he would be back there at the end.”
So now Johnson is nine points out of the lead with third-place Chaser Clint Bowyer 111 out of the top spot.
“We both need to finish in the top 10, that’s the first goal,” Johnson said of the three-race battle with Gordon. “We can’t get so caught up in racing each other that we make mistakes and have issues and the 07 (Bowyer) gets caught up to us. We don’t need to make it a three-car race; we need to keep it a two-car race.”
The pressure is tightening on both Hendrick drivers as Gordon is attempting to win his fifth championship in the series and Johnson is hoping to defend last year’s title.
That puts team owner Rick Hendrick in a precarious situation. He can’t play favorites and has to give both drivers equal support to let them battle it out to the end.
“It’s a tight race and a good day for Jimmie and the guys,” Hendrick said. “A good finish; a wild finish. We have three more to go and we’ll see if our nerves can stand it.”