Jeff Gordon wins in eleventh NASCAR Sprint Cup race of 2014 |
|---|
Topics: 5-hour Energy 400, Jeff Gordon
|
Wikinews
May 13, 2014
On Saturday, Hendrick Motorsports driver Jeff Gordon won the 2014 5-hour Energy 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Kansas Speedway. Starting the race in thirteenth, Gordon claimed his 89th career win, first of the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, and third at the track. The race was the first Sprint Cup Series night race held at the track.
Area thunderstorms and tornado warnings delayed the planned 7:37 p.m. EST race start by 35 minutes. About halfway through the race, a second incident occurred, when some of the lights on the track's backstretch blacked out. Two major wrecks occurred during the race: with 116 laps remaining, Jamie McMurray's car had a tire go down, and hit the turn 3 wall, with both the front and back of the car catching fire; McMurray was rescued by pit crew members. With about 80 laps remaining, A. J. Allmendinger, who was attempting to pass Paul Menard, spun out and hit Justin Allgaier, who spun into David Gilliland, the latter sent airborne.
Pole-sitter Kevin Harvick dominated for the majority of the race, and had placed almost a third of the 43-car field behind a lap when he performed a pit stop on lap 42; Harvick would lead on 119 laps, the most of any driver in the race. However, he was relegated to the middle of the field after the lap 42 pit stop. By lap 236, cars began making green-flag pit stops, which led to Brad Keselowski taking the lead, but was forced to make his stop with nine laps remaining. As a result, Gordon took the lead, and defeated Harvick by .112 seconds. Gordon's teammate Kasey Kahne was third, then Joey Logano, and Dale Earnhardt, Jr.. Carl Edwards, Danica Patrick, Aric Almirola, Jimmie Johnson, and Matt Kenseth rounded out the top ten.
After the race, Gordon led the points standings with 394 points, followed by Kenseth with 379. Kyle Busch with 373, Earnhardt with 368, Edwards with 367, Logano with 346, Johnson with 340, Ryan Newman with 332, Greg Biffle with 328, and Brian Vickers with 327 closed out the top ten.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.