Jeff Gordon celebrated his 89th career victory and his first of 2014 after winning the 5-Hour Energy 400 underneath the lights at Kansas Speedway.
The race produced some interesting moments, the first of which came when the start was delayed by 35 minutes due to passing thunderstorms and possible tornadoes in the area. Caution flags were put out on lap 80, when AJ Allmendinger lost control on the front stretch and prompted a six car wreck and on lap 116, when Jamie McMurray slammed his No. 1 Chevrolet SS into a wall in turn 3.
Gordon is the ninth different winner in 11 races so far in this year’s chase for the Cup. He has been outspoken about his desire for a win throughout the season, saying he would trade his points lead for a win if he could.
“This is so sweet,” Gordon told Fox post race. “What a huge weight lifted off this team’s shoulders.”
Gordon took over the lead after Brad Keselowski pitted for fuel. He was faced with holding off a hard charging Kevin Harvick in the final laps.
“He was strong and he was coming …” Gordon said. “I’m not sure I could have held him off much longer.”
Harvick, who qualified pole position, led the race for 119 laps. However a badly planned pit stop got him tangled up in the middle of the pack for the majority of the race, costing him his win.
“We just had to overcome a lot tonight. Getting caught on pit road both times under green-flag pit stops and then we ran out of gas coming to pit road there. I was looking at the fuel-pressure gauge instead of the tach and lost a bunch of time down pit road and off of pit road and wound up getting stuck behind the 24. I just ran out of laps at the end. … I made too many mistakes at the end to get by him.”
Harvick and Gordon were followed into victory lane by Kasey Kahne, making for an all Chevrolet podium. Danica Patrick also finished seventh and made a bold passing move on Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. to run third for a period of the race. She finished a career best seventh.
Comment
Fantastic! Go Jeff go!