Weekly Racing
Journal
Indianapolis/Charlotte
“Double”
Race/Date:
Indianapolis 500/May 25, 2003
Location:
Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Start Position:
Third
Finish Position:
22nd
Race Recap:
Robby
Gordon’s bid for victory in both races of the Indianapolis/Charlotte
“Double” ended early at Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Sunday after a gearbox problem sidelined him on lap 169, relegating
him to 22nd in the final results. Gordon started on
the outside of the front row in the No. 27 Archipelago/Motorola
Dallara/Honda/Firestone and ran solidly in the top five during
the first 45 laps of the 200-lap event. However, during his second
pit stop, the caution flag waved while Gordon was on pit lane,
nearly catching him a lap down to the leader. The Archipelago/Motorola
crew continued to work their way to the front until further problems
on pit lane forced them back. During their next-to-last pit stop,
the crew was unable to get a rear wicker out of the car in time,
so Gordon was forced to return to pit road the following lap to
complete the work. To add insult to injury, the car stalled during
Gordon’s final pit stop and the gearbox broke three laps
later. He was unable to complete the race and began his trek to
the Coca-Cola 600 early.
Robby
Gordon Quotes:
"The Archipelago/Motorola
car drove pretty well all day. It is just unfortunate we had the
gearbox problem.
We got behind early. We tried some different strategy and that
kind of hurt us and I drove conservative, which also hurt us.
It was very difficult to pass out there. We had just gotten back
into the top 12 and then we broke something in the gearbox. We
had some trouble on our second-to-last pit stop and then we stalled
it on the last pit stop so we had to drive through the field a
couple of times. It would have been a lot easier to run 600 miles
tonight at Charlotte with a better finish.”
Race/Date:
Coca-Cola 600/May 25, 2003
Location:
Lowe’s Motor
Speedway
Start Position:
38th (dropped to rear of field after missing
drivers’ meeting)
Finish Position:
17th
Points Position:
12th (gained one position)
Race Recap:
The second leg of Robby Gordon’s Indianapolis/Charlotte
“Double” ended in disappointment Sunday evening at Lowe’s
Motor Speedway when rain ended the longest race of the season
after only 276 laps and washed away the Cingular Wireless team’s
chances of securing a top-10 finish.
Before the 600-mile event
even began, Gordon was running an important relay between Indianapolis
and Concord. When he fell out of the Indianapolis 500, he jumped
on a golf cart for the infield care center, where an IV was started
for Gordon to receive fluids. He then was driven in a car behind
a police escort to his rental car parked nearby. Gordon and his
guests piled into the rental car and continued behind the police
escort to the Indianapolis airport where a Cessna Citation X jet
was waiting. One hour later, Gordon was on the ground at the
Concord airport, from where he took a helicopter into Lowe’s
Motor Speedway just in time for drivers’ introductions.
Since Gordon missed the
drivers’ meeting because he was still in Indianapolis, he
was forced to fall to the rear of the 43-car field when the 600-mile
event began. Gordon had worked the No. 31 Cingular Wireless Chevrolet
into the 36th position when rain began falling for
the first time around lap 106. NASCAR displayed the red flag
to dry the track and racing resumed a few minutes later. Gordon
continued to battle a tight-handling car but a chassis adjustment
made during a pit stop under caution on lap 130 seemed to free
the car up, but long, green-flag runs just tightened it up again.
Gordon lost a lap to the leaders while struggling with the car
but the Cingular team was determined to make it up.
Crew chief Kevin Hamlin
called for a few more chassis adjustments as the evening wore
on and Gordon radioed in that the Cingular car was much better.
He steered it into the 21st position by lap 194 and
the 10th by lap 200. Gordon brought the Richard Childress
Racing (RCR) machine down pit road under caution on lap 202, one
lap earlier than allowed by NASCAR because the car was almost
out of fuel. Team Cingular gave Gordon four fresh tires and slight
chassis adjustments before NASCAR relegated him to the end of
the longest line for the early pit stop, positioning Gordon 17th
for the restart.
The Cingular Wireless
Chevy quickly responded to those changes and was soon one of the
fastest cars on the track. Gordon steered it into the 11th
position by lap 244 before pitting under caution on lap 265 for
four fresh tires and fender work that was made necessary after
another car bumped the No. 31 machine a few laps earlier. Team
Cingular elected to spend a few extra seconds in the pits and
give up a couple of spots because they knew they had a car capable
of making up that ground and finishing in the top five. Unfortunately,
heavy rain began falling after the completion of 276 laps and
NASCAR called the race 134 laps early, crediting Gordon with the
17th position.
Gordon gained one position in the NASCAR Winston
Cup point standings to 12th and is only 71 points out
of 10th.
Robby Gordon Quotes:
“I feel great right
now and I think I’ll be fine tomorrow. We came 25 laps short
at Indy because of a broken gearbox, and that’s 100 miles,
and we’re obviously 134 laps short at Charlotte because of
rain. I would have definitely finished this race and hopefully
had at least a top-10 finish if this race hadn’t been called.
I think it was pretty weak that the race was called as early as
it was because they could have gotten the track dried and finished
up the show for the fans.
"I’m disappointed because we had a good car. I wanted
to be able to finish the 600. The later and cooler it got, the
better the Cingular Wireless Chevrolet was. We lost the car in
the daylight but as we worked on it and the sun went down, the
car got better and better. We just needed the out-front track
position to get some clean air on our car. We slid around too
much on old tires and tires were worth a lot tonight.
“Seventeenth place
at Charlotte is pretty weak because we had a better car than that.
We got lapped when the sun was out because we were too tight but
we got that worked out and could have had a top-10 finish. We
should have stayed out during that last caution instead of pitting
to make the car closer to perfect and we would have had an 11th-place
finish. I was feeling fine to go the distance for the whole 600
miles and it wouldn’t have been a problem. It was just great
being able to be in both races. We had great car but it just didn’t
work out at either race."