In shades of old, Hendrick Motorsports’ Jeff Gordon was in rare form in 2014.
How rare? How about four wins, 14 top-fives and 22 top-10s.
In the end though, it didn’t matter.
The four-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion won’t be in the final round of the Chase next Sunday from Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway, despite his runner-up performance in Sunday’s Quicken Loans Race for Heroes 500 at Phoenix (Ariz.) International Raceway.
While Gordon took the checkered flag and his No. 24 team thought they had secured their spot inside the “final four” for next weekend’s season-finale, Ryan Newman had other plans.
Newman in his first year of driving for Richard Childress Racing charged his way through Kyle Larson’s No. 42 Chevrolet in a dare-devil like maneuver, which sent Larson into the wall and assuring Newman the final spot in the Chase.
Gordon obviously didn’t take the news well, but would you?
“It’s disappointing,” offered Gordon “We have a lot to hold our heads up high about; the way that we raced this race and this whole Chase and the whole season. We raced hard. We raced together as a team. But I hope we taught somebody that you can race clean and still go out there and give it your best.
“You don’t have to wreck people to make it in the Chase or win the championship. I’m afraid if it was that ugly these last couple of weeks it’s going to get really ugly next week. I couldn’t be more proud of this Axalta Chevrolet team and Alan Gustafson (crew chief) and everybody. This makes last week hurt that much more”
Indeed last week’s 29th place finish at Texas Motor Speedway left a scar. One that will (now) last for months. Daytona 2015 in February to be exact.
While contending for his fifth win of the season, a bold three-wide move by 2012 champion Brad Keselowski resulted in contact with Gordon’s No. 24 Chevrolet SS, which ultimately cut down his tire and ruined any chances of a recovery.
The on-track skirmish resulted in a post-race altercation, with words being exchanged between the two drivers. The heated exchanged seemed to simmer down to all but nothing, when Phoenix winner Kevin Harvick shoved Keselowski back into a swarm of hungry sharks, it ignited a full-out NASCAR brawl.
After penalties were handed down by NASCAR to members of the Hendrick Motorsports team on Tuesday, the teams put last week’s incident behind them and focused on Sunday’s 312 laps.
It almost paid off.
“We did everything we could here, second just wasn’t good enough,” added Gordon. “(Kevin) Harvick was in another zip code. There was nobody that was going to get him today. We did a great job finishing second. You know what I’m not happy about it, but at the same time I’m really proud of what we have done this year and we will go try to win Homestead and end this season on a positive note.”
Though Gordon won’t be clinching his fifth Sprint Cup Series crown, the 92-time Sprint Cup Series winner is still a fan of NASCAR’s new system.
“I like it. It’s exciting; the most interest I’ve seen in this sport in a long, long time; not necessarily for all good reasons, but it certainly makes it very challenging and difficult to get there. Only next week will tell. You want it to just come down to the best teams. That’s not necessarily always the case.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
