Gordon: 'Nobody needs enemies out there'

Contact that occurred when Keselowski (Team Penske) tried to wedge his No. 2 Ford between the Chevrolets of race leader Jimmie Johnson and Gordon on the first of two green, white, checkered restarts cut Gordon’s tire and resulted in a 29th place finish. Johnson collected the win, while Keselowski finished third.

“I have no issue with a guy being aggressive and making a bold move,” Gordon said. “If you win the race and the guy you slam finishes third or fourth or something, I’ll be the first one to stand up and say ‘that was awesome, that was a great move.’ But when you don’t win the race and you ruin a person’s day, there are consequences that you are going to have to deal with.

“How you handle yourself after that is a part of that. To me, if you’re going to compare (someone) to the greats of this sport that have been aggressive over the years, you also have to compare them in those situations afterwards. The ones that I’ve had to deal with on that, they know how to not make enemies. They might not have a lot of friends out there, but they also don’t have a lot of enemies. If they do, they seem to find a way to patch that up fairly quickly.”

At 43, Gordon is one of the older drivers still contending for wins and championships on a regular basis. When he broke into the sport in the early 1990s, drivers such as Dale Earnhardt, Dale Jarrett, Rusty Wallace, Darrell Waltrip, Mark Martin and Terry Labonte were among those he found himself battling each week.

“I got wrecked a couple of times by Dale Earnhardt Sr., and I can tell you the first thing he did was put his arm around you and say ‘hey man, I didn’t mean to do that.’ While you didn’t necessarily believe him, it had an effect,” Gordon said. “It did.

“There are just some guys you can race like that and some guys you can’t race like that. … Most of the time with Dale, you thought it was your fault, (that) you caused it. He was pretty good at doing that, too. But if it was his fault, he had a way, usually with a bit of a sense of humor, to sort of ease your concern.

“I don’t believe that you’re out there to try to make friends, but you’re not out there to try to make enemies. Nobody needs enemies out there. That doesn’t help you win races and championships.”

NASCAR did not penalize Gordon or Keselowski. Four Hendrick Motorsports crewmen were fined and suspended for their roles in the fight, while crew chief Alan Gustafson (Gordon) and Kenny Francis (Kasey Kahne) were fined and placed on probation.

Team Penske owner Roger Penske has continued to voice his support for his driver, issuing a statement a day after the race.

“Brad Keselowski is a champion who competes to win in every race, which is what I expect of him. While the actions by others following the race in Texas were unfortunate, Brad has my 100 percent support as we now move on to Phoenix for the next stage of the NASCAR championship,” Penske said.

The Texas incident was the second for Keselowski in this year’s Chase For The Sprint Cup. Last month at Charlotte, he was involved in a post-race altercation with Joe Gibbs Racing driver Matt Kenseth.

Gordon said he wasn’t seeking an apology when he approached Keselowski, the 2012 series champion, on pit road last week. Under such circumstances, he said, it’s more of an opportunity to “just have a conversation, to discuss what their decision-making process was at that time.

“Yeah, when it ruined your day, you want someone to have a little bit of sympathy,” he said. “It doesn’t mean you have to take back what you did, it just means you have to understand what it did for the other person. And (that) certainly was not the way that one was handled.”


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