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Wednesday, August 15
Malfunction may have cost Gordon a win
Associated Press
| |  | | | Gordon |
CONCORD, N.C. -- Nobody would blame Robby Gordon for
pointing fingers over his latest racing disappointment. After all,
it seems like someone should pay for his chance at victory going up
in flames.
But it's been three days since a NASCAR-mandated TV gizmo blew
up in his car, and no one has apologized to Gordon for ruining his
solid shot of winning Sunday's race at Watkins Glen International.
Gordon isn't sitting around waiting for the calls to come.
"Nobody has told me what happened, nobody has told me why," he
said Wednesday. "The whole thing is disappointing, but no
explanation or apology can change that. All I can do is stay upbeat
and look at it like another one of those racing deals."
This wasn't really a racing deal that knocked Gordon out.
His day ended when a box that assists NBC race coverage,
inexplicably burst into flames with 75 miles left in the race.
Gordon, who had been dominating the race, had just completed his
final pit stop when the Chevrolet filled with smoke.
The telemetry box -- which provides on-screen data such as RPM,
speed and track position through the Global Positioning System --
popped and burst into flames from its position on the floorboard as
Gordon raced back to pit road and jumped out of the car.
As a crew member reached inside to try to unbolt the
shoebox-sized device, it exploded in his face -- showering him with
battery acid and sending him to the infield medical center for
treatment.
By the time the fire was out and the box had been removed from
the car, there was too much damage for Gordon to continue the race.
It was a crushing blow for a driver who is trying to resurrect
his Winston Cup career, and has yet to get an explanation from
NASCAR, NBC or Sportvision, the New York-based company that
provides the box.
An NBC spokesman said since the box belongs to Sportvision and
is shared equipment used by all the networks that cover NASCAR, it
wasn't the network's fault.
But the network is still facing criticism for not reporting what
caused the fire during the broadcast, despite claims from Gordon's
team that they told a pit reporter the flames were coming from the
telemetry box.
"We were getting conflicting reports as to what caused the
fire," said Mike McCarley, the NBC spokesman. "We couldn't go on
the air with it since we didn't know what exactly was wrong."
Sportvision had yet to finish its investigation into the fire on
Wednesday afternoon and declined comment.
No matter what the company comes up with, it will be of little
solace to the Richard Childress-owned team, which has yet to win a
race in its five years of competition.
"We've lost races under freak circumstances in the past that
seemed to be in the bag, but this one takes the cake," crew chief
Royce McGee said. "It was supposed to be our day and something
totally out of our control, something we're forced to use, messed
up and stole victory right from under our noses.
"Nothing that Sportvision says or does about the faulty box
will bring back our shot at Victory Lane."
The Childress team does not want to use the box anymore, but is
required by NASCAR to install it because, if one car in the field
doesn't have the box, the others are less effective.
"The technology obviously helps our TV partners bring viewers
closer to the sport," NASCAR spokesman John Griffin said. "We
want all the cars to have them because anyone can be in the middle
of a battle for first.
"Without the box, the viewer is left wondering how fast that
car is going and the announcer has no idea what the difference
between first and second place is."
That's hardly important to Gordon, who will be one of those
at-home viewers this weekend -- and maybe longer.
See, Gordon is without a full-time Winston Cup ride. He drove
the last four races for Childress as a replacement for the injured
Mike Skinner, who returns to the car this weekend.
For Gordon, a former open-wheel racer who has had a rocky tenure
in NASCAR, going out with a win could have been huge and helped him
in his bid to land a permanent job.
"It's a big deal because I'm not going to be driving for a
while and it would be a little easier to sit home as a Winston Cup
winner," he said. "Instead, I'm sitting here as someone who keeps
banging on the door but can't get it to open.
"So to have this race won and to lose it because of nothing the
driver, the team or the car did, it's a tough pill to swallow."  Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
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