NASCAR Cup
Jeff Gordon Bristol Preview
BRISTOL, Tenn. – Jeff Gordon has won a race at Bristol Motor Speedway in each of the last four years. However, he has yet to win a night race here and he has yet to win at Bristol this year. Hopefully, that means good things to come this ...
Edited: Apr 15, 2002, 11:45 PM
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BRISTOL, Tenn. – Jeff Gordon has won a race at Bristol Motor Speedway in each of the last four years. However, he has yet to win a night race here and he has yet to win at Bristol this year. Hopefully, that means good things to come this Saturday night as the NASCAR Winston Cup Series returns for its final trip of the century to Bristol Motor Speedway for the Goody's Headache Powders 500. "Maybe we'll be able to keep up our string of yearly wins at Bristol," said Gordon. "And we'd really like to be able to win the night race." Gordon was victorious in a record four consecutive Food City 500 spring races at Bristol. That string was broken in this year's event in April when Gordon got caught up in a multi-car accident after a lapped car crashed in front of him. Crew chief Ray Evernham ordered a series of pit stops that enabled the Rainbow Warriors to work on front-end damage while keeping Gordon on the lead lap. With a damaged car and some soreness from a hard crash two weeks earlier at Texas Motor Speedway, Gordon drove his DuPont Automotive Finishes Chevrolet to a sixth-place finish. "Bristol has been a good track for us," said Gordon. "When we've been able to avoid the wrecks, we've finished up front. "On Friday we'll concentrate on having a good qualifying run so that we can start up front and establish good track position from the beginning." In addition to his four wins in 13 starts at Bristol, Gordon has six top-five and eight top-10's and an average finish of 11.4. And although Gordon has never sat on the pole at the .533-mile oval, he has started on the front row five times. Gordon averages a sixth-place starting position here. Although the first part of Gordon's season has not proven to be as stellar as years past, Gordon has finished in the top three in eight of the last 10 races. He has five wins and seven poles and has moved from sixth to fourth in the Winston Cup point standings in the last two weeks, gaining on leader Dale Jarrett. He is currently 467 points behind Jarrett with 12 races remaining. Homestead, an event set to run in November, is new this year on the Winston Cup schedule. Of the other 11 remaining events, Gordon finished first or second in eight of them last year and finished no worse than seventh in the other three. "We feel like we've had a good season," said Gordon "We have five wins, including the Daytona 500 – and any time you win the Daytona 500, you've had a good year. "Plus, we've had good cars all season and when we finish races, we finish up front. We were strong at the end of the season last year and we're as prepared this year as we've ever been." Perhaps prepared to celebrate under the stars in victory lane at Bristol.
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