Gordon smokes competition

CONCORD, N.C. -- Jeff Gordon won a late-laps brawl Saturday night, fighting a gas-starved engine, Clint Bowyer, Kyle Busch and a wild charge by Ryan Newman.

But it was Gordon’s second straight race win, and helped separate him a little from teammate Jimmie Johnson in the Chase standings.

Johnson, after leading the most laps in the first half of the race, spun with 104 laps to go and wound up finishing 14th. Johnson dropped from nine to 68 points behind Gordon in the Chase.

Bowyer, who finished second after a green-white-checkered overtime duel to Gordon, dropped 78 points behind Gordon’s bid for a fifth career championship.

The win was the 81st of Gordon’s career and his sixth this season, tying him with Johnson for most wins on the tour.

“I can’t tell you how many times we tried to give this one away,� Gordon yelped in Victory Lane.

Actually it wasn’t so much that as so many others trying to take it away.

Gordon appeared to be breezing to the win after taking the lead with 50 laps to go in the Bank of America 500, until a caution came out with 13 laps left because of a multi-car wreck. The race was red-flagged for 12 minutes for a massive cleanup of the track surface at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, then restarted under caution with only five laps left of the regulation 334.

Busch crept up on Gordon’s bumper for the restart, and team owner Rick Hendrick warned them not to wreck each other.

On that restart, Newman rocketed from fourth to first. But only two laps later, Newman drove over the edge of control and slammed into the wall, wrecking and forcing the race into a green-white-checkered overtime.

Bowyer was Gordon’s prime threat for the final sprint, but “I screwed up and ran into the back of him,� Bowyer said of the restart. From there, Gordon got away and the only issue for those final two laps was whether he’d run out of fuel.

As it turned out, Gordon even had enough to do his customary burnouts and doughnuts in celebration.

“I’ve got to thank Clint Bowyer for racing me clean -- and Kyle Busch,� Gordon said. “They could have run all over me there at the end.�

Tony Stewart remained fourth in the standings but dropped a whopping 198 points back after struggling to a seventh-place finish. Three pit-road collisions, two with Kasey Kahne and one with Paul Menard, forced Stewart into lengthy mid-race pit stops for repairs.

Kevin Harvick, who came in fifth in the standings, became the first Chaser to encounter problems when he pitted twice under green in the first 42 laps with a tire problem.

His crew first changed right-side tires, but that didn’t cure the problem. On the second stop, they changed left-side tires and discovered the left-rear was going flat. But the trouble put Harvick three laps down.

Matt Kenseth, who’d come into the race a woeful 11th in the Chase anyway, had an even more heartbreaking night, crashing on the 157th lap after leading on three occasions for 32 laps early. Kenseth dropped to the cellar of the Chase, 12th. He had also crashed in last week’s race at Talladega, Ala.

Johnson began hinting at dominance early but couldn’t keep the lead. He breezily took the lead from Jamie McMurray on the 16th lap but lost it on a pit stop under the second caution.

Johnson blasted back to the front on the 50th lap and stayed there until Kurt Busch took the lead during the third caution. On the ensuing restart, it took Kenseth three laps to take the lead away from Busch, with Johnson running third.

On the ensuing restart with 80 laps down, Kenseth could maintain the lead for only 10 laps before Johnson took it back.

This time, Johnson took control of the race for a long stretch, leading easily until the fifth caution came out on lap 118 for debris on the backstretch.

Johnson lost four positions during his lengthy pit stop as his crew attempted to correct a “push,� or understeering condition on his car.