Gordon balks at bully talk

LONG POND, Pa. -- Jeff Gordon scoffs at the notion that he's becoming some kind of a bully on wheels.

Recent spinouts of competitors have led critics to charge that the four-time Winston Cup champion is doing some unnecessary bumping and banging as it becomes obvious he isn't dominating the circuit any longer.

But Gordon has news for them. He realized long ago that the level of competition would prevent anyone from controlling the sport as he did while getting 50 of his 62 career victories between 1995 and 1999, and he says he didn't change his driving style just a few weeks ago.

"I've never felt like I was ever going to let anybody push me around," he said. "We're all 3,400 pounds out there on the race track.

"I'm not doing things out there to try to show people that. I'm just racing as hard as I can."

Too hard, according to Sterling Marlin, who was spun out twice in the last four races.

"He's always had the reputation as a driver that wasn't going to run over you," Marlin said. "But I don't know now."

Gordon would like to race the way he did when he broke in 10 years ago, when style and consistency were so important. But he says parity in the sport has tightened the field, creating more contact between cars.

He apologizes for spinouts of Marlin and Ward Burton, and acknowledges that NASCAR told him to calm down in the car. But Gordon says races are very difficult to win without aggressive moves, something he insists most drivers are making.

"There's not near as much give and take these days as there used to be, because track position is so much more important," he said. "You have to race harder every lap for every position.

"You used to be able to say, 'I'm going to let this guy go, and it's not going to matter. In the long run I'm going to run him down.' But no longer."

He spun out Marlin and wrecked Burton from behind on a straightaway in The Winston all-star race. Two weeks later, he spun out Marlin in Dover, Del.

Gordon contends he and Marlin -- who spun him out twice in the last three seasons -- race each other harder than most competitors and that the crashes were not intentional. He says he was being pressed by Dale Earnhardt Jr. and was forced into a move that wrecked Burton in The Winston.

"I meant to tap Ward, but our bumpers didn't meet up right, and boom, I turned him," Gordon said. "It wasn't that I was out of control. It was just a dumb move."

But Marlin questions Gordon's tactics against him.

"Two times in the last three weeks?" he asked rhetorically before they raced without a problem Sunday in the Pocono 500. "He's a better racer than that."

Gordon also has had past run-ins on the track followed by bitter words with three other series champions -- Dale Jarrett, Rusty Wallace and Tony Stewart.

Marlin finds some of the rough stuff puzzling, in part because he and Gordon raced peacefully for most of the last decade.

"I never really had any trouble with him but ... he got us twice," Marlin said.

The Dover crash is what really annoyed Marlin, who had a chance to win. Because he allowed considerable room for the pass, Marlin finds it hard to believe Gordon made contact.

"It's one thing if you pinned him down and he got loose and spun into you," Marlin said.

Gordon, who races again Sunday at Michigan Speedway, says the flurry of spinouts is erroneously perceived to be out of character for him.

"People want to make a big deal out of it," he said. "But it's really not out of character when you're me and you've been racing since you were 5 years old and you basically do what it takes to get by a guy.

"If I'm in a position to pass a guy clean I'm going to pass him clean. If not, I'm going to do everything to get by him if the time is right."

Gordon once was viewed as a driver who could pushed around, but now is seen as one who pushes back, crew chief Robbie Loomis said.

"He's probably still one of the cleanest guys out there when he's treated clean and fairly," Loomis said. "But if you try to race him in a manner that he doesn't think is clean and fair, then he's going to treat you the same way."

Gordon says there's no bumping out of frustration, because he insists he is not dissatisfied. He feels blessed to have had such a magnificent career at 31, an age at which most drivers are just breaking in or hoping to establish themselves.

Gordon looks around and sees outstanding younger racers such as protege and teammate Jimmie Johnson, Ryan Newman, Kurt Busch, Earnhardt and series leader Matt Kenseth. They're all recent additions to a star-studded gallery of champions such as Stewart, Jarrett, Wallace and Bobby Labonte.

So, Gordon isn't surprised that his five-year victory run of seven, seven, 10, 13, and seven couldn't be sustained indefinitely. He also feels fortunate because he won most of the time when he should have and often when he didn't have the best car.

Now, winning three times or so each year isn't so bad.

"I think somebody can win five or six races, but I don't think you're going to see anybody win more than that," he said.

It's still about winning races and championships, but Gordon believes a great part of the thrill of racing is the competition itself.

"I just want to be leading laps, I want to run up front," he said. "If that doesn't happen, then I'll be frustrated.

"If we pull off wins, great. If we don't, I've had so much success in the sport that it isn't going to ruin my career."