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Jeff Gordon claimed his first NASCAR Sprint Cup victory of 2014 by overcoming Kevin Harvick in Saturday night’s Kansas Speedway race.
Polesitter Harvick had a dominant car for much of the evening, and managed to recover from 18th to first after being disadvantaged when a yellow came out just after he had made a green-flag pit stop. Getting back through the field following that impediment took Stewart-Haas driver Harvick 106 laps, but once up front again he resumed pulling away from the field and looked to have the race in the bag.
That was until the final pit stops, when coming in a lap earlier helped Gordon’s Hendrick Chevrolet leapfrog Harvick, who lost a little momentum as his car ran dry coming into the pitlane. He rallied in the closing moments, surging forward amid traffic and getting within a tenth of Gordon across the line, but he could not deny the four-time champion an 89th Cup series win.
“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,” Harvick said.
Although Gordon had arrived at Kansas leading the championship, under the 2014 system he was not certain of making the Chase cut until he got a victory under his belt. He left Kansas with a 15-point lead over second-place Matt Kenseth.
“It’s a weight lifted off this team’s shoulders,” Gordon said. “We’ve been leading the points but we needed to get to Victory Lane.
“This has always been one of my favorite tracks,” Gordon added. “This was a very, very special win.”
A full 10 seconds behind the lead battle, Kasey Kahne held off Joey Logano, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Carl Edwards and Danica Patrick for third. Kahne, Logano, Earnhardt and Jimmie Johnson – who ended up ninth on an alternate strategy – were the other drivers who led significant portions of the race, while seventh was a career-best finish for Patrick after a very competitive performance.
Results - 267 laps:
Pos Driver Team/Car Time/Gap
1. Jeff Gordon Hendrick Chevrolet 3h07m31.000s
2. Kevin Harvick Stewart-Haas Chevrolet +0.112s
3. Kasey Kahne Hendrick Chevrolet +10.851s
4. Joey Logano Penske Ford +11.344s
5. Dale Earnhardt Jr Hendrick Chevrolet +12.359s
6. Carl Edwards Roush Fenway Ford +13.273s
7. Danica Patrick Stewart-Haas Chevrolet +13.628s
8. Aric Almirola Petty Ford +15.539s
9. Jimmie Johnson Hendrick Chevrolet +15.989s
10. Matt Kenseth Joe Gibbs Toyota +19.126s
11. Ryan Newman Childress Chevrolet +20.603s
12. Kyle Larson Ganassi Chevrolet +24.520s
13. Brad Keselowski Penske Ford +25.616s
14. Brian Vickers Waltrip Toyota +28.097s
15. Kyle Busch Joe Gibbs Toyota +29.623s
16. Greg Biffle Roush Fenway Ford +30.018s
17. Paul Menard Childress Chevrolet +1 lap
18. Denny Hamlin Joe Gibbs Toyota +1 lap
19. Austin Dillon Childress Chevrolet +1 lap
20. Tony Stewart Stewart-Haas Chevrolet +1 lap
21. Martin Truex Jr Furniture Row Chevrolet +1 lap
22. Ricky Stenhouse Jr Roush Fenway Ford +2 laps
23. Clint Bowyer Waltrip Toyota +3 laps
24. Marcos Ambrose Petty Ford +3 laps
25. Michael Annett Baldwin Chevrolet +3 laps
26. Casey Mears Germain Chevrolet +3 laps
27. Ryan Blaney Penske Ford +4 laps
28. Cole Whitt BK Toyota +4 laps
29. Kurt Busch Stewart-Haas Chevrolet +4 laps
30. AJ Allmendinger JTG Daugherty Chevrolet +4 laps
31. Joe Nemechek Robinson Toyota +5 laps
32. Reed Sorenson Baldwin Chevrolet +6 laps
33. Josh Wise Parsons Ford +6 laps
34. Travis Kvapil FAS Lane Ford +9 laps
35. Alex Bowman BK Toyota +10 laps
Retirements:
Justin Allgaier HScott Chevrolet 186 laps
David Gilliland Front Row Ford 184 laps
David Ragan Front Row Ford 171 laps*
Jamie McMurray Ganassi Chevrolet 149 laps
Timmy Hill Circle Sport Chevrolet 137 laps
JJ Yeley Xxxtreme Toyota 136 laps
Landon Cassill Hillman Chevrolet 63 laps
Ryan Truex BK Toyota 57 laps
* Running again at chequered flag
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