Notebook: Kenseth hangs on, finishes eighth

WATKINS Glen, N.Y. -- Matt Kenseth put another brick in the championship wall he's steadily constructing when he finished eighth in the Sirius at The Glen at Watkins Glen International.

It didn't look that way when Kenseth was trailing his two closest points pursuers and the brakes on his Ford were fading when he sailed off the road in Turn 1 with less than 20 laps remaining.

That Kenseth is leading a charmed life in his pursuit of his first Winston Cup championship was apparent after his strong closing finish.

"I'm not really proud of the way we ran, but I'm really proud of the way we finished," Kenseth said. "We just hung in there all day and survived.

"We ran terrible today, really -- we just didn't run good. We got lucky on the track (when) I bashed a fender in and we pitted just at the right time and that got us on our fuel cycle."

While his closest challenger, Dale Earnhardt Jr., finished third and led the first laps of his Winston Cup career on a road course, he only picked up 28 points on Kenseth, who has led the standings for the last 19 races.

Junior is now unofficially 258 points behind Kenseth. Jeff Gordon took the biggest hit in the standings when he ran out of gas virtually within sight of the finish line, was hit by Harvick and ended the race in 33rd.

Sirius at The Glen  Results  Standings  Video Highlights  Lap by Lap

Gordon remained in third but fell to 396 points behind, meaning he needs to carve 28 points off Kenseth's lead in each remaining race to pass him.

"Today definitely went our way," Kenseth said. "We had a caution when we needed it and all the things happened the right way for us to finish decent. I feel good for that because we didn't really run an eighth-place race, but we finished there.

"It's always good to finish better than you ran, I guess, and hopefully we'll go run better next week."

Glen takes another safety hit

Watkins Glen's safety crews took severe criticism from driver Ryan Newman Friday after he was involved in an accident and questioned the response time of rescue crews, and their competence.

Jeff Gordon was knocked into a crash on the frontstretch while running fourth and had to sit in his car, against the guardrail, until the 40 cars that were still running at the end had taken the checkered flag.

At that point, two marshals with fire extinguishers ran from Turn 7 to Gordon's car before safety vehicles arrived. Once he was loaded in the ambulance, Gordon found out about another Glen problem -- infield traffic.

"This is ridiculous," Gordon said after exiting the infield care center. "A hundred people could have got there (care center) before I got there.

"It wasn't that they didn't get to me very fast, because I was fine," Gordon said. "You should have seen the drive trying to get to the (infield) hospital. We were in bumper-to-bumper traffic in the ambulance, trying to get there."

Marlin makes early exit

VIDEO CLIPS Jeff Gordon spins on Lap 1 Play video Kevin Harvick's car catches fire briefly in the pits Play video Tony Raines, Boris Said spin Play video Rusty Wallace spins out Play video Robby Gordon wins, Jeff Gordon hits the wall on the final lap Play video Victory Lane Play video Jeff Gordon is frustrated after last-lap crash Play video Hear from the top five finishers at Watkins Glen Play video

By the time Sunday rolls around at Watkins Glen, quite a number of those in the Winston Cup garage have had enough of the course located in the beautiful Finger Lakes region.

Count Sterling Marlin among that number. After the engine in his Dodge broke on the race's second lap, he said he was looking forward to running at Michigan International Speedway next weekend, a track where he scored Dodge's first victory, in 2001, since its return to the sport that season.

"It hasn't been a good week for us (so) if it was going to happen, I'd rather it happen now rather than be at this ragged place all day. I'm ready to get out of here and get home.

"It wouldn't bother me if we never raced here again -- we haven't run good all week."

Some of Marlin's frustration could obviously be traced to his team's failure to match its pace of last season, when he led the standings for 25 weeks.

"The guys have been working hard, we just haven't found nothing," Marlin said. "We'd love to turn it around and get back where we were, but I keep waiting for it to turn.

"We've got some good tracks coming, at Michigan, Bristol and Darlington -- y'know, some real race tracks. I'm looking forward to getting back at it."

Harvick ill after grueling 90 laps

Kevin Harvick, who battled cold-like symptoms all week following a hectic schedule in the aftermath of his Brickyard 400 victory, slumped against WGI's pit wall after his fifth place finish.

	Kevin Harvick finished both road course races in 2003 in the top five. Credit: Autostock

When he recovered, he strolled to Victory Lane to congratulate his Richard Childress Racing teammate, Robby Gordon. It was the latest step in a road to reconciliation by the two fierce competitors, who were on two sides of a dispute after they finished 1-2 at Infineon Raceway.

"I feel bad today -- I'm just wore out," Harvick said. "I've been sick all week, and I was pretty tired in the car. I should've at least finished second behind Robby, but I'm proud of this whole RCR organization.

"That's two races in a row that we've won and three in the last couple months (so it was) a pretty good day. I just couldn't do a whole a lot. It's something that should've been a little bit better than it was, but we'll take a top-five."

Dale Jr.: "Robby is a classic professional road racer"

Dale Earnhardt Jr. had high praise for Robby Gordon in his post-race media briefing.

"Robby is a classic professional road racer and he has a given talent for road racing," Earnhardt said.

Disappointing day for Stewart

Defending Sirius at The Glen 400 winner Tony Stewart had to drop from his fourth starting position to the rear of the field due to an engine change by his Home Depot Chevrolet team.

	Tony Stewart Credit: Autostock

Stewart charged towards the front early in the race in company with Boris Said, whose team also changed engines, and Bud Pole sitter Jeff Gordon, who spun in the first corner.

But Stewart battled track position issues all day, and hurt his own cause when he slightly overshot his pit stall on a gas-only stop late in the race. He ended up 11th and moved up two spots in the standings to 11th.

Biffle questions NASCAR penalty

Greg Biffle did some NASCAR retro opinionating when he questioned a black flag he was given late in the Sirius at The Glen for not stopping after he straight-lined the backstretch chicane.

"They must have been mad at me for spinning Jeff (Gordon) out on the first lap," Biffle said of an incident in the race's first corner. Biffle got serious when he explained that he was told one thing in Friday's rookie meeting and in Sunday morning's drivers' meeting.

	Greg Biffle led 23 laps at The Glen. Credit: Autostock

The bottom line was still that he finished 30th after being black-flagged out of eighth.

"It's unfortunate that this happens in our sport, but it just depends if it's your day or not," Biffle said. "I came almost to a complete stop to obey the penalty and then left and lost four spots."

Biffle was penalized because he went by what he said he was told Friday, while in Sunday morning's drivers' meeting the attendees were told they had to come to a complete stop in that instance.

"I applaud him (Winston Cup director John Darby) for admitting it in the (office) trailer after the race," Biffle said. "He said that's (rolling stop was good) what he told us on Friday and then they told us in the drivers' meeting that you have to come to a complete stop.

"I did what I was told behind closed doors by the director and he said he changed his mind between Friday and Sunday."

Spencer's travails

	Jimmy Spencer Credit: Autostock

Jimmy Spencer surprised a number of people with a lead lap, 24th place finish Sunday.

Unfortunately, after running in the top-20 for half the race, Dave Blaney ran afoul of Spencer, spun out and never fully recovered on his way to a 25th place finish.

"The car was really pretty decent," Blaney said. "I just got into Jimmy Spencer and spun the thing out and kind of killed our day.

"Once we got to the back we couldn't really make up any ground, so it was a decent car -- I just made a mistake."