Same strategies, differing results for Hendrick duo

Two Hendrick Motorsports teammates used the same strategy at the end of Sunday's Sprint Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway, but with very different results. Jeff Gordon parlayed a fuel gamble into a second-place finish, while Dale Earnhardt Jr. was left running on fumes.

Winner Carl Edwards wasn't the only one who tried to stretch his final fuel run in the Dickies 500. Gordon and Earnhardt, who both rallied from a lap down to get back into contention on the 1.5-mile racetrack, each used the same tactic to get to the front. It worked for Gordon, who's still winless on the season, but tied his best finish of the year with the runner-up result. Earnhardt, though, ran out of fuel with five laps remaining, stalled his No. 88 car when he ducked onto pit road for gasoline, and finished in 20th place.

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I know it's late in the season, we haven't won yet, but that doesn't mean we're laying down.
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JEFF GORDON"I told [crew chief] Tony Eury Jr., you know, don't worry about that," Earnhardt said of the failed gambit. "We all tried to win the race, and we win as a team and lose as a team. We need to figure out the fuel mileage deal because Jeff Gordon stayed out as well, and just figure out what we need to do. We probably just should have started saving a little bit earlier."

Edwards set the standard, feathering his throttle to the checkered flag to complete a 69-lap, race-ending fuel run that gave him his eighth victory of the season and trimmed Jimmie Johnson's championship lead to 106 points. But it felt like a win for Gordon, who finished second for the first time since Martinsville in March. It looked bleak early for the Texas pole winner, when Edwards' relentless pace at the front put one car after another a lap down, Gordon's No. 24 Chevrolet included. Eventually Gordon was in position to receive a free pass back onto the lead lap -- Earnhardt did the same -- and make a bid for the front.

"Real proud of [crew chief] Steve Letarte and all the guys on this team for not giving up," Gordon said. "We struggled. We were good when we were out front at the beginning, and fell back to fifth, and we just kept trying to free it up through the middle. One time I got too loose and lost all the track position, lost a lap. We had to fight our way back to get on the lead lap. I give them a lot of credit for being patient with everything all day, and Steve Letarte for making that great call to come in and not only work on the car but get as much fuel in it as we could and go for it there at the end."

Gordon believes the free pass helped him in more ways than one. The caution that let him back on the lead lap was caused by a Juan Montoya accident that closed pit road, because the crippled No. 42 car was left blocking a part of it. As the field coasted under yellow, Gordon was able to save fuel that he'd need in the end.

"The leaders had already come in, and we had to ride around for quite a while, and that gave us the few extra laps," Gordon said. "Then when we pitted, we just took our time with it. We were the only car that had to be at the tail end anyway, and plus I saved on the caution laps. I was turning the engine off, so I felt pretty confident that we could make it if we were only one lap short."

Added Letarte: "We just played the hand we were dealt. We didn't have a good enough car to drive up to the front. We got behind on that one run. We got the [free pass]. The guys did a great job. Jeff drove a pretty smart race. When our car was off, he kept it in one piece, and we knew we were close on fuel. I didn't think anybody could make it. I thought we had it won, to be honest."

Not quite. Toward the end, it looked like Gordon might come up one lap short. But he made his fuel last.

"I conserved a little bit under yellow. So when they said we were one lap short, I really wasn't that worried," he said. "But I was still letting off real early, and we didn't know the No. 99 [car of Edwards] was going to go for it. Obviously a great call by Steve Letarte on this DuPont/Nicorette Chevrolet. Great, great teamwork all day. It was a heck of a fight for us."

But it still wasn't the race victory Gordon has been looking for. He's now gone 39 events since his last Sprint Cup victory, at Lowe's Motor Speedway in October of last year. He's 14 days away from his first winless season since his rookie campaign of 1993.

Sunday, though, brought hope. Intermediate tracks like Texas have been one of Gordon's biggest hurdles in the new car, and he left Fort Worth with renewed confidence.

"We're not going to give up, that's for sure. I know it's late in the season, we haven't won yet, but that doesn't mean we're laying down. We're certainly not going to do that. Just like going for the pole on Friday. I mean, we're doing everything we possibly can," said Gordon, who's won at every active track on the Sprint Cup tour with the exceptions of Texas and Homestead-Miami Speedway, where the season concludes in two weeks.

"You know, I'd be a little bit more excited about our chances if we had run up front and ran in that second position all night or all day. The thing is, we're going to look at any possible way to win races. We're going to try to make the car go as fast as we can. When we have that opportunity to make it on fuel, you know, we're going to take the opportunity. That's what we did [Sunday]. But I'm still disappointed that we struggled with the handling. I had my hands full. Some of it's me, some of it's the team and the setup. That's something we've got to work on coming back to Texas. But I look forward to the next two opportunities to try to win. [Sunday] is an obvious sign that we can still win. No matter how the car's running, we can still win. We'll go to the next two and do everything we can to try to win."