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Sunday, August 12
Reality TV bad for Gordon
Associated Press
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WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. -- There's bad luck. And then there's
Robby Gordon's luck.
At the Global Crossing at Watkins Glen International on Sunday,
Gordon turned the fastest lap of the race, led twice for 13 laps --
and finished 30th.
The reason? A television glitch.
The telemetry box on Gordon's dashboard, which the networks have
used all season to measure such things as lap speeds and intervals
between cars on the track, malfunctioned, sending fire and smoke
through his cockpit and forcing him into the pits for good on lap
59. He was leading the race when the trouble hit three laps
earlier.
"It seems that the system that powers the GPS (Global
Positioning System), which is a battery pack, failed," NASCAR
spokesman John Griffin said. "We've asked Sportvision, which
supplies the system and installs it in each car every weekend, to
try and put together the pieces and explain what happened in the
next couple of days."
Griffin said the parts were being taken to Charlotte, N.C.,
where Sportvision will try to figure out what wrong. That was
little consolation to the hard-luck Gordon, who blew a sure win at
Sears Point in June, allowing Tony Stewart to slip past him in the
closing laps for the victory.
"NASCAR owes me one," said Gordon, who has been seeking a ride
since he was replaced by Kevin Lepage after five races in the
Morgan-McClure Chevrolet. "We had 'em covered today. To go out of
the race with something that's not driver related or team related
is a huge disappointment."
And embarrassing for NASCAR, which requires every car to carry
the box.
"That is a concern to us," Griffin said. "We need answers
quickly and NBC needs answers."
Race winner Jeff Gordon agreed.
"We had that same problem at Daytona before the 500 ever
started," Gordon said. "Our battery blew up. We took the in-car
camera out of the car and didn't run it for several weeks until
they got that problem fixed.
"I don't know if the same thing happened today, but if it is,
then they seriously need to look at what's going on there and make
sure that doesn't happen. We can't have things blowing up in the
car. We love TV, we love in-car cameras, we want to have them out
there, but we can't have it costing us the race."
Battling Boris
Road race ace Boris Said battled to an
eighth-place finish, his first top 10 in five Winston Cup races.
And he made one of the most daring moves of the day on a late
restart, going from seventh to third on the first turn.
"With eight laps to go, I just went for it," he said. "I was
chattering the tires all the way down there. I couldn't have gone a
quarter of a mile an hour faster or I would have wrecked."
The move didn't sit too well with some of the NASCAR regulars
that Said swooped past.
"I guess Boris just went in there and drove all over the top of
us," said Ricky Rudd, who rallied past Said to finish fourth.
"I'm not sure where he thought he was going, but he's lucky he
didn't wipe the whole field out."
Said did wipe out Tony Stewart on lap 34, spinning him into the
gravel at turn 1.
Foreign failure
Ron Fellows was trying to follow in the
footsteps of former Canadian racer Earl Ross, the only foreign
driver ever to win a Winston Cup race.
Fellows looked like he had a good shot at the Global Crossing.
He started sixth and led for two laps early in the race, then lost
the rear end while running near the front and his day was done on
lap 37. He finished 42nd.
"I don't know how many more of these Winston Cup
disappointments we can take," said Fellows, who finished last a
year ago when his engine gave out on lap 20. "I can't believe the
rotten luck we have in Winston Cup."
Ross also had bad luck in Winston Cup, but with sponsors. Ross,
who was born in Ailsa Craig, Ontario, and still lives there, won
the Old Dominion 500 at Martinsville in 1974. He was so successful
that year he was named NASCAR rookie of the year.
But that was the only full season he ran in the series. As soon
as his main backer, Canadian beermaker Carling, pulled its
sponsorship, he was through.
Pit stops
Dale Earnhardt Jr. won an 18-lap charity race
Saturday night at nearby Tioga Speedway to benefit the Spalding
Foundation for Injured Drivers. On the last lap, Earnhardt passed
leader Scott Kuhn, a crewman for Kyle Petty, who finished third in
the 12-car field of Winston Cup drivers and crew members. Earnhardt
called the event "pretty special."
Jeff Gordon has led at
least one lap in 18 of the 22 races this season. He has outscored
all other drivers, earning 130 bonus points for being the lap
leader.
Jeremy Mayfield was third at Watkins Glen and now has
seven top 10s this season.
Kevin Harvick finished seventh in
the Global Crossing and leads Kurt Busch by 43 points in the rookie
of the year race. Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
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