Gordon grabs victory in controversial finish

TALLADEGA, Ala. -- This time, the decision went Jeff Gordon's way.

After a NASCAR ruling went against him a week earlier in Martinsville, Va., costing Gordon a shot at victory, the sanctioning organization handed the four-time Nextel Cup champion a controversial win Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway.

Gordon seized the lead from Dale Earnhardt Jr. with six laps remaining and barely beat him, ending DEI's winning streak at Talladega and bringing a rain of beer cans and garbage from the pro-Earnhardt fans.

"I don't mind a little controversy, especially when it goes my way," Gordon said, smiling.

In Martinsville, Gordon had little to smile about after his car was damaged when he hit a large piece of concrete that had dislodged from the track while running second. NASCAR refused to let Gordon's Hendrick Motorsports team repair the car during the 77-minute delay while the track was being repaired. He wound up sixth.

Sunday, with Earnhardt making a strong move to pass for the lead coming off turn four on lap 184 of the 188-lap race, rookie Hendrick driver Brian Vickers and Casey Mears collided, sending Vickers sliding and bringing out the 11th caution flag of the race.

Under NASCAR's rule change from last fall, freezing the field when the yellow comes out rather than letting the competitors race to the flagstand, Gordon got his first Nextel Cup victory of the season, third on Talladega's 2.66-mile oval and the 65th of his NASCAR career.

At first, Earnhardt was posted in front, but replays appeared to show Gordon's No. 24 Chevrolet was about three-quarters of a car length ahead of Earnhardt's No. 8 Monte Carlo when the caution waved. The partisan crowd booed lustily and beer cans and food rained onto the track as Gordon was put back on top and drove slowly to the finish behind the pace truck.

"The kind of breaks we've been having lately, I wasn't going to get too excited until I crossed the finish line," he said.

"I thought they might get the race restarted and I still might have some work to do.

"Beating the DEI cars is difficult to do," Gordon said, referring to both Earnhardt and Michael Waltrip who, between them, had won five straight Cup races at Talladega, including four by Junior.

Gordon said he didn't know if he was ahead of Earnhardt when the caution came out.

"I know I was ahead of him coming out of (turn) three, but we'll let NASCAR make that decision," he said.

Gordon, a four-time Cup champion, led four times for a total of 15 laps.

Earnhardt, who led 11 times for a race-high 57 laps, politely disagreed with NASCAR's decision.

"There at the end, we rolled out to the outside and I got a shove from 48 coming down the back straightaway," Earnhardt said, referring to fourth-place finisher Jimmie Johnson, another of Gordon's teammates.

"I thought I was out ahead of Jeff when the caution came out, but that's not the way NASCAR saw it and I still haven't seen NASCAR's evidence to show me I was not ahead of him when the caution came out. I was a car-length ahead of him when I went past a caution light which was not on.

"We'll just see what they got to show us and we'll go with that. We aren't going to argue and stomp our feet about it. NASCAR makes the rules."

NASCAR spokesman Jim Hunter said a videotape review clearly showed Gordon ahead when the caution lights came on.

"We turned the lights on when the wreck was in progress," Hunter said. "We had a great piece of footage that showed the two cars, so it was really clear-cut that Gordon was in the lead."

Hunter said Tony Eury, Earnhardt's crew chief, looked the video and agreed with NASCAR.

The other part of the controversy was the fact that NASCAR did not get the green flag back out for a race to the finish, keeping it under caution to the end and igniting the fans anger when they realized Gordon was going to win.

"Here and at Daytona we're not going to have a one-lap shootout just because of safety," Hunter said. "We're just not going to do that."

There had already been enough bumping and banging at speeds above 190 mph in a race typical of the recent Cup events at both Talladega and Daytona, the tracks where NASCAR requires horsepower-dampening carburetor restrictor plates to slow the cars.

Cars ran in huge packs, often three- and four-wide throughout and there was passing from front to back on nearly ever lap. The lead changed hands 54 times.

Earnhardt and Waltrip had combined to win 10 of the previous 13 races at the two big tracks. But Earnhardt, who is leading the season points, didn't appear too disappointed by finishing second.

"It was a wild race," Earnhardt said. "Everybody was really having a lot of fun out there. Regardless of all the beating and banging, we were all smiles. There was lot of racing and a lot of passing."

With the cars running so close together, and all with about the same horsepower, multicar crashes are nearly inevitable at Talladega and Daytona -- and Sunday was no exception.

The "Big One" came on lap 84 when Tony Stewart tapped the rear of Kurt Busch's car near the bottom of the banked track, sending Busch sliding sideways up the banking right in front of a huge pack of cars.

Before the crashing and spinning was through, 10 cars were scattered around the fourth turn. The cars driven by Busch, Derrike Cope and Kenny Wallace had to be hauled off on flatbed trucks. There were no injuries.

Kevin Harvick wound up third, just ahead of Johnson, who was followed by Robby Gordon, Mark Martin, Jeff Burton and Mears.

Waltrip, who won here last fall, ran near the front most of the day but faded at the end to finish 12th.