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Robby Gordon a strong, surprising third in Coca-Cola 600
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Published: May 26, 2009
First-time Sprint Cup Series winners are nothing new for the Coca-Cola 600.
Neither are surprise top-five performers.
Two years ago, Casey Mears earned his first Cup win in the 600 on mileage strategy in a race that saw J.J. Yeley finish second -- his career-best performance -- and Kyle Petty third, his first top five since 1997.
A rain-shortened 600 on Monday at Lowe's Motor Speedway, and a decision by three teams not to pit during the final caution, produced another set of surprises.
David Reutimann earned his first Cup victory and Robby Gordon finished third, his first top five since the 2007 race at Watkins Glen, N.Y. And it was his best finish on a superspeedway since he was fourth at the spring race at Darlington, S.C., in 2004.
"We were sitting there 20th or 21st and sat there and watched (the situation)," said Gordon. "It's like, OK, if we pit, we'll come back out 21st or something like that.
"If we stay out, we've got an opportunity to finish in the top five and didn't know how many people would stay out."
As it turned out, NASCAR waited just over two hours for the weather to clear and pulled the plug on the race after 227 laps, cementing Gordon's third-place finish. He remains 34th in series points.
"It has been a year since I've been in the top five," Gordon said. "We needed to figure out how to do that a little bit more."
Gordon's run may come at some cost, however.
Late Monday night, NASCAR officials announced it had confiscated the rear axle housing off his No. 7 Toyota and would take it to the organization's research and development center for additional inspection.
His previous best this season was 15th at Las Vegas.
"For me, this is a momentum builder for us. We've had some decent runs. Unfortunately, we got caught up early at Darlington. success breeds success and I think this will only help us," Gordon said.
"We've been focusing really hard on our race cars and this is another clean race car that we get to bring home so that will help us as far as building up ammunition to go to the race track with."
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