Jeff Gordon commits costly pit road gaffe

Dale Earnhardt was dominant in winning Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway, but Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon thought his Chevrolet was every bit as strong as Earnhardt’s car if not better.

But Gordon, who started on the pole and led 47 laps, never got to challenge Earnhardt for victory in the Geico 500. Gordon took himself out of contention when he sped onto pit road, the second time this season he’s let a potential win slip away due to a speeding penalty. Gordon committed a similar violation while leading late in the March 29 race at Martinsville Speedway.

“You want to seize those opportunities,” Gordon said. “This was an opportunity for us. We had an awesome racecar; I definitely feel like we had the best racecar. Junior was good ... but I felt like we were amazing. That’s frustrating. I think the most frustrating thing is making a mistake. At Martinsville, I made a mistake. Here I made a mistake. We’ve got to eliminate those mistakes when we have race cars like this, because we have an awesome race team.”

Sunday’s infraction came as Gordon entered pit road on lap 159 of 188, occurring simultaneously with a caution when Austin Dillon’s engine expired, leaving a trail of oil on the track.

But as Gordon stood on the brakes, his car didn’t slow down. Instantly, he knew a speeding penalty was coming. A costly blunder because had he not sped, Gordon could have completed his stop then would have jumped into the lead when the rest of the leaders pitted the next lap -- a significant advantage considering how difficult it was to pass Sunday.

“I’m not happy with myself really,” Gordon said. “I made that mistake coming to pit road. That was a make or break moment in the race. It could have put us in the lead. Instead we were the tail end of longest line.

“We were in good position to get tires and be the leader. We actually timed it perfectly.”

After restarting in the back, Gordon recouped some of the lost track position. Any chance, however, of winning for the first time in 2015 evaporated.

The closing laps were run mostly single-file with the majority of the field glued to the upper groove and unwilling to race side-by-side. Gordon was then caught up in a last-lap crash and finished 31st.

“If those guys decide to go single file like that, you’re not going anywhere,” Gordon said. “I was in the middle on that final restart, making some ground up, and all of a sudden they all went outside, and that point, it was over. You’re just sitting there waiting for the white flag to come up.”