NASCAR- Robby Gordon Race Notes - Las Vegas
6 March 2000
Robby Gordon
#13 Menards Ford Taurus
Team Gordon CarsDirect.com 400 Race Notes/Quotes Sunday, March 5, 2000
Round 3 of 34 in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series
Las Vegas Motor Speedway - Las Vegas, NV
Qualifying position - 12th
Finishing position - 13th
Points position - 22nd
Robby Gordon finished today's rain-shortened CarsDirect.com 400 in 13th
position. The race lasted only 145 of a scheduled 267 laps, but had
surpassed the mandatory halfway point making the results official. Gordon
made changes during his first stop following a delay for rain. The crew
freed up the car, topped-off and took on right side tires which made all the
difference in allowing Gordon to pick up 20 positions in 30 laps. On lap
96, Gordon took over the lead, taking advantage of that previous stop and
gaining the five NASCAR championship points for leading a race in the
process.
On the subsequent pit stop, Gordon's crew had a jack failure, delaying his
stop and dropping him to 24th. Gordon kept his charge however, passing cars
and climbing to 13th before the rains arrived stopping the race for good.
Quotes:
ROBBY GORDON "We had a good car today after the changes we made in the
first stop. I was struggling in the first part of the race with a push and
a pretty bad loose condition on throttle. We just moved backwards there
early and I couldn't do much about it. Once we freed it up though, the car
was fast. We elected to top-off after the caution for rain which put us out
of sequence, but it was the right call for us. We needed to make changes
and having the outside rubber allowed to really run well once we went green.
It's too bad, if the rains had cancelled this race only 12 laps later, we
might have won because the leaders would have been forced to pit.
"I'm excited with the effort. We had one of the fastest cars on the track
today and a legitimate chance to finish up front. The guys on this team
have all had the pedal to the metal lately. We brought this car in from the
Rockingham race after fixing its damage and it was a lot of work. But we
knew it was a fast race car and I think we proved that today."