Gordon's Saturday night at PIR one of Murphy's Law

AVONDALE, Ariz. -- By Jeff Gordon's own admission, Saturday night's Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix International Raceway was "one of those crazy nights."

For a team that hadn't faced frustration all season, just about everything that could wrong in one race, did. Sore back. Dented fenders. Missing lug nuts. All resulting in a 25th-place finish for Gordon, while allowing teammate Jimmie Johnson to nearly halve Gordon's points lead. Gordon came to Phoenix up 162. He leaves holding an 85-point advantage.

When asked if there was anything unfortunate about the race, Gordon had an easy answer.

Subway Fresh Fit 500

Results

Pos.	Driver	Make
1.	Mark Martin	Chevrolet
2.	Tony Stewart	Chevrolet
3.	Kurt Busch	Dodge
4.	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet
5.	Greg Biffle	Ford
6.	Denny Hamlin	Toyota
7.	Martin Truex Jr.	Chevrolet
8.	David Reutimann	Toyota
9.	Sam Hornish Jr.	Dodge
10.	Carl Edwards	Ford

• Results | Points | Laps | Photos

"There were a lot of things that were unfortunate [Saturday night]," Gordon said. "It just wasn't our night."

After starting the season with a 12th-place run at Daytona, Gordon had put together six consecutive top-10 finishes, including snapping his winless streak at Texas two weeks ago. But this weekend seemed different, right from the time the team unloaded the No. 24 Chevrolet from the hauler. Even though Gordon qualified fourth, he said he wasn't 100 percent.

"I haven't been feeling good this weekend, my back was hurting," Gordon said. "When you're feeling like that, you can't really give good information, feedback to the team."

Gordon hung around the top 10 for the first 140 laps, but contact with Denny Hamlin shortly thereafter pushed in the left-front fender to where the sheet metal was rubbing against the tire and putting out a huge plume of white smoke. Gordon moved to the outside and slipped back to 18th while he and crew chief Steve Letarte pondered whether to pit under green, but seemed to catch a break three laps later when A.J. Allmendinger spun and hit the outside wall on Lap 152 (watch video).

That allowed the No. 24 crew the opportunity to make extensive repairs. But it also put him 32nd on the track when the race resumed.

Twelve laps later, Gordon found himself right in the middle of an incident involving Michael Waltrip and Robby Gordon which resulted in more bodywork damage.

"We had some damage when me and Denny got together," Gordon said. "[Waltrip and Gordon] spun out in front of me. I was trying to pass [John Andretti] and he didn't know it. It was just one of those crazy nights."

But the capper to Gordon's miserable evening was still to come. Out of sync with the rest of the lead-lap cars after repairing the bent fender, Letarte decided to leave Gordon out when the caution came out 15 laps later. That initially appeared to be a great call when Gordon restarted behind Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Marcos Ambrose when the green came back out on Lap 172.

However, few in attendance could have expected the race to stay green for the next 129 laps, forcing Gordon to head for service on Lap 234. That was when disaster struck. Gordon left pit road missing a lug nut on the left-front tire, which resulted in him having to pit a second time -- and go two laps down to the race leader.

"We had some issues in the pits," Gordon said. "We can't afford to have any mistakes any more, really. Steve made a great call to keep us out there. We just struggled with the car."

Marooned in 34th place, Gordon was able to rally back to 25th at the checkered flag, but the look on his face told the entire story.

"It was just an all-around tough night," he said.