It is widely anticipated in sports that when a champion passes his peak age starts behaving dirty in order to stay on the top as much as it can. Is this theory reliable in the case of Jeff Gordon after The Toyota/Save Mart 350?
For sure the race was a mess. It was mosh-pit racing from start to finish but this time no only just from the usual suspects. The road course has transformed a normally respectful Jeff Gordon into a flaming Keselowski and the 4 times NASCAR Cup champion appeared more like a bargain hunter at a shoe sale as he punched and gouged his way through the field.
Standing between Gordon and the $29 pair of Gucci loafers on one occasion was Martin Truex Jr. Gordon’s head-butt ended a nice run by Truex and his Michael Waltrip Racing team.
Gordon was almost shouting...
"Just had to have those shoes",
Was Gordon's reckless driving a sign of an aged champion who tried in any way to dive in the lead, in a course where he used to be a usual winner, just to stop his winless streak?
Gordon tried to excuse himself:
"Everybody was doing it. Guys were just running people off the race track. Running into the back of them. It was like being on a short, dirt track. I know we’ve made a lot of people mad. We finished top-five, we’ll just take it. It tore our race car up and we never had a shot of winning after that, but a lot of guys didn’t finish in the top five like we did either, so oh well.
On the restarts you just got used up. Guys making it three wide, and I’m as guilty of it as anybody. After they started doing it to me, I had to do it to others. There is some things that I’m not proud of that I did today, certainly with Martin. I mean, I completely messed that up and I will try to patch that up. Other things that happened out there were just really hard racing incidents."
However Gordon tried to apologize to Truex – kind of.
"I made a lot of guys mad today,” he said. I certainly owe Martin Truex an apology. I feel awful about that.
Yet Mr. NAPA Knows-How Martin Truex Jr. replied:
"Apology not accepted. I guess Jeff figured (if) he couldn’t catch us on the race track he was going to spin us out on the restart. He was six, seven car lengths behind me coming into (Turn) 11, and I didn’t think I had anything to worry about. The next thing I know I’m spun around. If he’s a car length or two back, yeah, you take your defensive line, you prepare for it, him trying to dive bomb me, but he was seven car lengths back. There’s no way he should have been where he was.
Now I know he’s going to say Juan (Pablo Montoya) was trying to pass me and I was trying to block him. I don’t care. Just because he’s trying to pass you, it’s alright for you to spin me out? No. Let him pass you then. I would have let Juan pass me. If it was either get passed or spin out Jeff Gordon, I would have lifted and get passed. That’s the difference between me and him. That’s why I’m here, that’s why he’s out there and that’s why I’m pissed off."
There was no apology from Gordon to Kurt Busch, another driver he ‘dozed.
"Kurt Busch had everything coming to him that I gave him because he gave it to me on the restart before that, so I don’t feel sorry about that. I certainly do with Martin. With Elliott (Sadler), I feel bad. I was racing him hard, he was blocking me but we was trying to race somebody else, too, but that was probably my fault as well.
