Atlanta
– 3/11/01
Starting
Position – 40th
Finishing
Position – 20th
Laps
– 323
Robby
Gordon churned out a workmanlike 20th-place finish in Sunday’s
Cracker Barrel 500 from the Atlanta Motor Speedway. Starting 40th,
Gordon and
the Morgan-McClure Motorsports team worked on the car throughout
the day both during pit stops and carving different lines on the
tracks.
The
biggest pitfall of the day occurred on lap 159 when Gordon’s Kodak
Chevrolet hit the outside wall in turn four. Gordon had been complaining
about the car being especially loose in the laps leading up to
the incident, citing a tire problem as the possible culprit. They
decided to give it a few laps as crew chief David Ifft felt it
could merely be a "buzzed tire," something that might
cure itself on the track.
Only
a few laps following the gamble, Gordon was in the wall. And with
the right rear tire shredded following the contact, it was not
known if the tire was indeed the cause. Regardless, the contact
produced damage to the right rear of the car which the crew did
their best to repair and Gordon continued on.
As
the laps wore on in the second half of the race, Gordon slowly
began to gain positions both by running a steady pace and also
attrition. Early on the goal was to produce a top-25. Finishing
20th was a step up and something for both driver and team to build
on as they head to Darlington and "The Track to Tough to
Tame" next weekend.
The
20th-place finish is a season-best for Gordon and Morgan-McClure,
moving the #4 car up to 36th position in the points chase through
four races.
Robby
Gordon quote:
"Well,
it was a long day out there, but maybe we learned something. We
definitely didn’t have the best car so we had to just run our
race and made the best of it trying different things. Finishing
in the top-20 isn’t a bad thing. Obviously everyone here would
like to roll off the truck and be a rocketship, but that’s not
the case right now. I think the only way we fix it is to run all
day like we did here and find answers. Eventually we’ll get this
turned around."
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