Break of the Race: Elliott Sadler

DARLINGTON, S.C. -- What could have been an incredibly pleasant afternoon for Jeff Gordon ended abruptly Sunday against Darlington Raceway's outside wall.

Leading late, the four-time Winston Cup champion appeared headed to yet another victory at "The Track Too Tough to Tame." He entered the Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 with six victories and 11 top-five finishes in his past 15 Darlington outings, and Sunday's trailing cast seemed unable to catch him.

	Elliott Sadler

That was before Gordon tagged the outside wall with 25 laps remaining. It was a smart lick, and just enough to allow the second-place Elliott Sadler pull even.

"Jeff Gordon doesn't make too many mistakes and when he made that one I was thinking, 'Now is my chance,' " Sadler said. "Then I hit the wall right behind him."

As Sunday's pole-sitter, Sadler had run top-five for most of the day. But his cookie-cutter wall swat banged his car's rear end around, and knocked his alignment awry. And like Gordon, Sadler couldn't recover.

Waiting to pounce on lap 270 was Kurt Busch, who was sitting in third place. Almost immediately he shot past Gordon and Sadler, and Gordon began sinking through the field.

"We couldn't run with him after that," Sadler said of Busch. "I didn't know he was absolutely that close to us, but after we hit the wall as hard as we did, we didn't have anything for him."

Sadler fared better than Gordon, finishing seventh. Gordon finished 33rd, seven laps down.

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"Those guys were right there with me, and because I was so tight, I wasn't as fast as I wanted to be to be able to drive away," Gordon said. "Unfortunately we just got in the wall. My mistake, and I'm going to make up for it next weekend at Bristol."

Gordon, who started fifth, ran with the leaders most of the day, but it wasn't easy thanks to handling issues. Continuous fixes and stellar pit stops kept him in the hunt, and Gordon led twice for 79 laps, the most behind Dale Earnhardt Jr., who led a race-high 91 laps.

Gordon led only once early -- lap 70 -- but with the distance winding down, he appeared in control, leading from lap 192 until he whacked the wall on lap 269.

"I was out front and all I had to do was keep it out of the wall," Gordon said.

"Obviously, that was as easy as I thought it was. I just got in there and it seemed like the right rear just caught it a little bit and sucked the right front in, knocked the toe out and it was over."

So was his top-10 status in the Winston Cup point standings. Gordon had zoomed up to eighth after last week's second-place finish at Atlanta. He leaves Darlington in 15th.

Sadler's top-10 finish also boosted him into the top 10 in points. He leapfrogged from 19th to 10 heading into Bristol.

"That was our chance to win the race," Sadler said of hitting the wall behind Gordon. "[The crew] gave me a first or second place car, and I finished seventh with it, but we'll take a top 10. "