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.
The four-time champ claims that twice -- on Lap 238 and again with three laps to go in regulation -- Kenseth blocked him. Even Kenseth agreed Gordon had the stronger and faster car. I think that just made Gordon determined to stay his line and to stay his pace -- whether Kenseth was there or not. If Kenseth deserved to be in front of Gordon, it wasn't going to be because Kenseth blocked and Gordon backed off. It was going to be because Kenseth blocked and was able to outrun the No. 24.
"I dove underneath him trying to see if I could get him to overdrive the corner a little bit, and he cut down in front of me," Gordon said. "Then I got back in the gas early, and I don't know if that [lapped car of Casey Mears] affected him, but he had been getting off there so good and he didn't that time, and I drove right in the back of him."
Kenseth wasn't entertaining any notion of hard-driving, but unintentional excuses for Gordon.
"That wasn't an accident. … He just ran over me," Kenseth said plainly. "On the restart he was hanging back and NASCAR has a rule you can't hang back two car lengths or one car length, although I've never seen it enforced. But he was hanging back because I was a little weak on restarts, and trying to get me and then I could drive away. Or, apparently, he was mad because I blocked him on that restart when he got a run, but I don't know. It's just the way it goes, I guess."
Gordon's reply: "If I wanted to just wreck him, I could have done it on [the restart on Lap 238] because I easily was inside of him, and he ran me all the way down to the apron and our bumpers touched and he was getting ready to spin out because he just kept going -- I actually checked up to keep from wrecking him. I want to win a race fair and square, and that's why I hate that he spun because I think we had a car capable of racing for the win. I think that that was one indication to me."
When Gordon saw that Kenseth was going to try to block him to retain the lead and win the race, Gordon was determined to unleash his car, one he was convinced was better than Kenseth's, and force Kenseth to outrun him instead of block him. Indeed, when he saw Kenseth block him on the second-to-last restart, the wheels started turning in his mind.
"I was like, 'Hmm. OK, if he's going to make it that difficult, then that does open it up a bit,'" Gordon said. "Then I got another run on him going into Turn 1, and I dove in there pretty deep and he didn't even hesitate to run right down into the groove. To me, I was like, 'Wow, he's pretty brave right now,' and then I got through the middle so good and I just jumped in the gas. He had been getting off there so good, he had been getting into the gas real early, as well. That's why I think the lapped car just [affected him] just a little bit because he just didn't get in the gas as hard as he had been, and because I got in it so good, I just ran right into him."
Gordon's take: Kenseth got slow and the wreck just happened. Kenseth's take: Payback from Bristol. I'm pretty sure it was somewhere in between. I'm pretty sure Gordon wasn't going to let Kenseth win without making him earn it, and whatever happened in Turn 2 was a product of a dogged determination not to let up.