Vicious Circle

July 10, 2006 — -- A million questions -- and surely a million expletives -- were sent into the air Sunday afternoon when Jeff Gordon got into the rear of Matt Kenseth's No. 17, sending the Ford spinning and Gordon to Victory Lane in his Chevrolet.

Was it intentional? Was it payback for Kenseth laying a bump on Gordon at Bristol Motor Speedway earlier this season? Was it even necessary? It looked like Gordon was going to pass Kenseth within the remaining three laps, anyway. Also, Kenseth ended up running out of gas.

Only the two drivers know whether Gordon lurched into Kenseth to wreck him or whether Kenseth slowed down, perhaps from a combination of lapped traffic to his right and wanting to block Gordon on his left. But it's the topic of conversation at NASCAR Nation's water coolers today, and here's my take: Of course Bristol had something to do with Sunday's events, but I doubt it prompted Gordon to intentionally wreck Kenseth.

Jeff Burton said it best after the race: The most effective penalty for wrecking a driver is for the driver to know that the person he wrecked is going to make life difficult in the future. When Kenseth wrecked Gordon at Bristol, he knew the incident wasn't going to just go away -- especially when he got shoved by Gordon immediately after the race as Kenseth approached with the intention to apologize. The incident must have been fresh in Gordon's mind during the closing laps of the Chicago race -- you'd be playing ignorant to think otherwise. But I don't think Gordon was focused on revenge. I think he just remembered one thing: Race him hard, because he raced you hard.

When Gordon felt like he was getting blocked, the gloves came off. It wasn't an automatic reaction in an effort to exact revenge. It was a reflex from settling into the mind-set that Kenseth wasn't going to take an inch from Gordon, because Kenseth wasn't willing to give an inch at Bristol.

"I didn't mean to wreck him, but I didn't mind moving him out of the way, either," Gordon said.