Gordon confused by black-flag penalty

Cup point leader finished two laps down in Sharpie 500 at Bristol

BRISTOL, Tenn. -- Jeff Gordon's misunderstanding of the so-called "Lucky Dog" free pass procedure resulted in a pass-through penalty that cost the Nextel Cup points leader several positions in the Sharpie 500.

Gordon's was the first car one lap down when a multicar accident in Turn 2 brought out the evening's ninth and final caution flag with 111 laps remaining. Per NASCAR rules, the recipient of the free pass is allowed to pass the pace car and drive around to the tail end of the longest line.

Jeff Gordon and Robbie Loomis pleaded their case to NASCAR after Saturday's race. Credit: Autostock

At that time, individuals who so desire -- usually wrecked cars -- can wave the recipient past for the restart. In this instance, the longest line was the one holding lap-down cars.

And while Gordon contended several drivers waved him by, or dropped down to let him pass, NASCAR said there were at least 10 cars behind him on the restart, including two cars on the lead lap.

According to NASCAR spokesman Mike Zizzo, Gordon was instructed four times to move up the racetrack and let other cars go past. When he didn't adhere to this request, he was black-flagged.

SHARPIE 500 •   Results •   Standings Victory Lane Dale Jr. celebrates his Bristol weekend sweep In the Hunt Newman moves into top 10 after finishing second Final Laps Dale Jr. streaks to the checkers ahead of Newman Check and wreck Drivers get tangled up after checking up for Vickers Oh, Ricky! Craven and Rudd are involved in seperate crashes Early Trouble Spencer, Wimmer, Nemechek bring out cautions

"There may have been two or three of them that legitimately waved him by, but if you look at that huge group of cars, I'm not so sure that we'd get everybody to agree that they all waved him by," said Nextel Cup director John Darby.

"The 24 was supposed to be at the tail of the longest line, and he's in the middle of the pack."

Gordon was black flagged following the final restart on Lap 400, and honored the penalty on Lap 406. He ultimately finished two laps down in 14th position, and was none too happy afterward.

"I'll tell you what, I'm on my way over to the big white truck, because I think they really made a big mistake on the call there for black-flagging me," Gordon said.

"I knew I was supposed to go to the tail-end of the longest line. I waited, waited for cars to go by me. The inspector in the pit told Robbie (crew chief Loomis) to tell me that if they wave me by or they're wrecked then you're OK.

"So I'm waiting, I look up and there's nothing but wrecked cars behind me that won't pass me. (Dale Jarrett) went by me, then I think he was tail end of the longest line, so he let me go by him.

John Darby

"Then Kyle Petty waved me by, too. And I got by him and NASCAR black-flagged me. That cost me a lot of positions, so I'm going to go find out what the deal is. I can't change it now, but I'm pretty disappointed."

Gordon then went into the NASCAR transporter for a discussion with Darby and president Mike Helton. Afterwards, he stormed from the hauler with no comment. Crew chief Robbie Loomis came out a short time later.

"They determined from the tower that some of the guys didn't let (Gordon) by," Loomis said. "How they do it, I had trouble seeing myself what exactly happened. But it's like football. It's a call that's made, we have to live with it, nothing's going to change it.

"The guys put a lot of work into the DuPont race team to get better and better and get all we can out of the finish, so you have to go up there and voice your opinions so we can get better calls in the future.

"We've all seen in this sport, if you handle things in the correct manner than it'll come back around in your favor in the end, and I think it will in this case."

Darby said the guidelines were laid out prior to the race.

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"Every Sunday in the driver's meeting, the free pass car is explained," he said. "The last detail about receiving the free pass is that you start at the tail of the longest line.

"(Gordon) was obviously eight, 10, 12, 14 -- I don't know what the whole number was, but there was a huge number of cars that he failed to drop behind. That's the black and the white, the cut and the dried.

"They can pull over and stop and wave somebody by, but if they're never in front of the car that needs to go to the back, I don't know how he could understand that they want you to go by him."