Gordon's rebound true sign of championship formula

BRISTOL, Tenn. -- Steve Letarte was ready with positive reinforcement, even if his driver didn't need it. Seconds after Jeff Gordon crossed the finish line, the crew chief issued a reminder of the possible long-term ramifications of Sunday's remarkable comeback at Bristol Motor Speedway.

"If we had given you half the car you deserve, you would have won the race," Letarte told Gordon over the radio. "That's how you win championships, not by what you do with the good cars, but what you do with the bad ones."

Lap-by-Lap

Kyle Busch moved past Denny Hamlin on Lap 485 and held his position through two restarts for fourth career victory.

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And Gordon truly had a bad car early in the Food City 500, pedaling backward early in the event and needing plenty of teamwork and some good fortune to salvage a strong finish out of NASCAR's spring visit to the half-mile oval. One minute he was starting from the pole, then he was about to get lapped by leader Tony Stewart, then he was giving interviews on pit road after somehow finishing third.

"We had our trouble," Gordon said. "We started on the pole and went backwards pretty fast. Steve Letarte and all the guys on the team did a great job making adjustments. That was teamwork right there. We were fortunate not to go a lap down there a couple of times. Right there at the end, we had a pretty good racecar."

Good enough to stand second entering the green-white-checkered finish, during which Jeff Burton barreled by on the high side to finish as runner-up behind race winner Kyle Busch. But the Hendrick Motorsports driver was more than satisfied with third, given that on Lap 158 he had been the second-to-last car on the lead lap, only one corner ahead of Stewart, the leader at the time. A caution five laps later saved him, and his crew did the rest.

"I was real proud of Steve and Jeff, because at one point Jeff was probably the worst car on the track," car owner Rick Hendrick said. "He was really struggling. Seeing a guy who's so good here have that kind of problem, you know there's something wrong. They didn't give up. They raced hard, they raced smart. I'm real proud of the effort."

Gordon's car was tight on Saturday in practice, so his crew loosened it up. Too much, it turned out -- the blue and red Chevy started falling backward almost from the drop of the green flag, and Letarte tried a little of everything to get it right again. They pulled spring rubbers out of the right-rear, experimented with different air pressures in the tires, tried to build more forward bite.

The car was never great. But it was good enough so that toward the end, when contenders like Stewart, Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin started falling to the back for a variety of reasons, Gordon could take advantage. Letarte took only tires on the event's final pit stop, and Gordon emerged in the unlikely position to win. As the cars approached the final time, only teammate Busch loomed ahead of him.

Gordon radioed his crew to remind Busch that there was a teammate behind him, and not to wreck him if he got a fender inside him entering Turn 1. Hendrick issued a reminder to both drivers to remember the big picture.

"I've been in situations where my two teams were fighting on pit road. It's tough riding back to the airport in the van and trying not to get hit in the middle. I don't enjoy that," the team owner said. "We said after that race, we'd talk about it. But I don't expect the guys not to race, either. There's a way to race, and race clean. I mentioned both to Kyle and Jeff over the radio, 'Think about the big picture,' and they did. I'm thankful there wasn't any problem."

But Gordon never had a real shot at Busch at the end. Spoiling the Hendrick party was Burton, the Richard Childress Racing driver, who zoomed past on the high side as Gordon considered a move on his teammate. Gordon radioed that he had made a mistake by not going to the outside.

However, he was still more than pleased about where he wound up. The finish was good enough to give him the series lead by three points over Burton heading to next weekend's race at Martinsville, Va.

"I didn't think we had a shot at the thing anyway," he said. "I'm just happy to finish third."