Gordon wins at Kansas as points race tightens

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KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- Jeff Gordon defended his championship in the Protection One 400 Sunday at Kansas Speedway when he drove away from Ryan Newman after a restart with three laps remaining.

Protection One 400 Nine-car accident on lap 7 Play video Marlin wrecks in Turn 2 Play video Gordon celebrates in Victory Lane Play video Johnson takes over the points lead Play video Newman scores fifth runner-up finish Play video Park hits the wall on lap 111 Play video Michael Waltrip makes early exit Play video

Gordon, whose No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet had fallen 190 points off the championship lead in fifth place coming into this race, was .618 seconds ahead of Newman at the finish.

That duplicated last year's finish in the inaugural event on the 1.5-mile oval.

After being involved in an accident last week at Dover International Speedway, Gordon knew a big performance at Kansas was necessary if he hoped to defend his Winston Cup championship -- which would be his fifth crown.

"I kind of put my foot in my mouth last week by saying we had to win (and) I had to back it up," Gordon said. "This team, what an amazing job they did. They really did a lot of work coming into this event, went off a lot of notes from last year and they never gave up.

"I wish I could be more excited, but I am just completely worn out right now."

Gordon ended up leading a race-high 116 of the final 121 laps in the race, and won for the third time this season, the 61st of his 322-race career and the third time in the last six races.

He dominated the field in two restarts in the last 15 laps to give new car chief Steve Letarte his first victory since taking over the position this weekend.

	A crash on lap 7 involved nine cars, including the machines of Tony Raines and Ken Schrader (36).

"It was a good run, another top-five," said Newman, who leads the series with 18 top-fives. "I'm happy to finish second, but I wish we could have won. We had a car that was plenty capable of doing it, as was Jeff's and he got the victory."

Rusty Wallace finished third, Joe Nemechek was fourth and Bill Elliott was fifth. It was Nemechek's first top-five of the season.

"It got real tight many, many times throughout the day and right there at the end it was just way too tight," Wallace said. "I couldn't do anything with the two leaders, but I was a strong third place car, there's no doubt about that. It was a good run for us -- fourth last year, third this year -- we're getting better."

After a restart with 14 laps remaining, Gordon's lead over Newman had grown to nearly a second when a multi-car accident in Turns 3 and 4 caused the race's 11th caution flag to fly.

	Johnny Benson climbs from his machine after a late accident. Despite the wreck, Benson still finished 23rd.

The red flag was immediately thrown after Gordon took the caution to conclude lap 262. After a delay of 13:16 the final green flag flew at lap 265 of 267. Once again, Gordon easily pulled away.

"I had great, great horsepower underneath the hood," Gordon said. "Man, I'm exhausted. I was fine until they threw that red. I knew they were going to throw it but I didn't realize how hot it was until I sat over there (off Turn 2).

"I think all of us (drivers) are pretty exhausted but what a great victory."

"That was gonna be my best shot, but the way those Chevrolets restart it's hard to get the torque off the bottom end," Newman said of the final restart. "We got great engine performance today out of our Penske engine, but Jeff knew what he was doing on the restart to keep me from jumping him."

	Greg Biffle was one of 15 cars that did not finish.

While eight of the 11 cautions were for accidents and a season high 15 of 43 starters did not finish, the last wreck had the biggest potential for changing the finish. It appeared to begin when Johnny Benson and Jimmy Spencer got together.

"It was tight racing there at the end and the 10 car (Benson) just dove off in there and hit Jimmy in the left rear and got him around," Spencer's crew chief Doug Randolph said. "It caused a big wreck for everybody (and) we had two wrecked race cars today."

"It just looked like the 41 (Spencer) wanted to take me down in the grass," Benson said. "I went underneath him and got on the apron and I slid up into him after that.

"We were just sliding and got hit. Guys just do a lot of blocking (but) I don't know -- maybe he was moving down to the grass to let me by on the outside. But, I was already committed underneath him."

	Steve Park crashed on lap 111 but later reentered the race.

Three of the top-five drivers in the point standings managed to finish in the top-10 and the other two had major problems as the race created a jumble at the top of the standings, with four of the top-five positions shifting.

Gordon's teammate Jimmie Johnson, despite suffering a flat tire on his Chevrolet, came back to finish 10th and unofficially took the point lead, by 11 over former leader Mark Martin, whose engine failed after 250 laps, knocking him to 25th.

Tony Stewart finished eighth and remained third in the standings, 36 behind Johnson. Gordon jumped up to fourth, 109 behind the leader.

Sterling Marlin, who earlier this season led the points for 25 races, was involved in an accident, finished 33rd and fell to fifth, 121 points back. However, the unprecedented point race tightened as now, Wallace is sixth, 137 points out and Newman is seventh, 154 behind.

	Sterling Marlin finished 33rd and dropped 40 more points to the championship leader. Marlin is now 121 points back heading into Talladega.

"Every time those guys have had trouble, so have we," Gordon said. "So I didn't want to put too much into it. I just wanted to run our race and what a great race it was -- I'm just so proud of these guys.

"Thank God for just a safe day -- that thing was just on rails."

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Matt Kenseth, who both fell out of the top-five on the final three-lap run, ended up sixth and seventh. Jeremy Mayfield held onto ninth despite getting caught up in the final accident.

"They threw that red flag and our car was really, really poor on restarts today for some reason," Kenseth said. "I couldn't get going after that red flag. I got under (Earnhardt) Junior and he ran me all the way down past the apron.

"I could have stayed in it and finished fifth and wrecked him, or I could have lifted and lose three spots, so I lifted and lost three spots because of that deal at the end."

"I had Dale Junior by about a fender there at the end for fifth place," Elliott said. "I had no choice but to come in and get four tires. I was either going to finish eighth or ninth, so what did I have to lose by pitting?"