Gordon Wins at Martinsville
MARTINSVILLE,Va. (April 10, 2005) – Jeff Gordon scored his sixth win at Martinsville Speedway and the 133rd NEXTEL Cup Series victory for team owner Rick Hendrick this Sunday. The No. 24 team triumph at the famed Virginia short track moved the DuPont team up six spots to sixth place in championship points standings.
Gordon started the No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet from 16th place on the grid and made it all the way to Victory Lane even after being down three laps due to a loose wheel. With 34 laps to go, the four-time champion passed Sterling Marlin in the No. 40 car and never looked back.
“What a great, great race car this DuPont Chevrolet was today,” says Gordon. “We just never gave up that fight, you know? That's what it takes week in and week out, especially here at Martinsville. We had a problem where we got down, but we fixed it and we never lost sight of winning this race.”
Teammate Jimmie Johnson continued his top-10 streak with an eighth-place finish for Team Lowe’s Racing. Johnson is the only Cup Series driver to score a top-10 finish in all six of this year’s events.
Johnson and the No. 48 Lowe’s team struggled during the day and were content to leave the .526-mile track with a top-10 finish.
“It was a little win though and that is was championships are all about,” says Johnson. “Granted probably not huge in the big picture when we get down to the final ten races, still it is a good thing for the team to battle through.”
GMAC/ditech.com Racing driver Brian Vickers and rookie Kyle Busch of the No.5 Kellogg’s Chevrolets both got caught up in accidents and finished 35th and 39th respectively.
The Hendrick Motorsports stable travels to the Lone Star State this weekend where Terry Labonte will run the third leg of his “Shifting Gears” tour at Texas Motor Speedway in the No. 44 GMAC Financial Services Chevrolet. On the Busch Series circuit, Blake Feese will pilot the No. 5 Team Lowe’s Racing machine in Saturday’s 300-miler.
You can catch the NEXTEL Cup race on Sunday April 17th on FOX at 12:30p.m. and the Busch Series event on Saturday April 16th at 2 p.m. on FOX as well.