Gordon Wins Rain-Shortened Pocono 500

LONG POND, Pa. (AP) _ Even with his brakes failing and the rain falling, Jeff Gordon showed that nothing could slow him down on the way to his fourth victory of the season. <br/><br/>Gordon held off a

Sunday, June 10th 2007, 7:35 pm

By: News On 6

LONG POND, Pa. (AP) _ Even with his brakes failing and the rain falling, Jeff Gordon showed that nothing could slow him down on the way to his fourth victory of the season.

Gordon held off a charging Ryan Newman to win the rain-shortened race at Pocono Raceway on Sunday night and give Hendrick Motorsports its 10th win in the last 12 Nextel Cup races.

The race was red flagged after 106 laps of the scheduled 200-lap, 500-mile race. With darkness falling, the cars went back to pit road and never came back after a final attempt to dry the track.

Newman finished second, extending his miserable run of having no wins to show for all his poles. The race pole sitter seemed poised to catch Gordon right before the caution came out and instead stretched his winless drought to 59 races.

Newman has eight poles _ including four this year _ since his last win in September 2005.

The race was delayed three hours by rain, starting close to the time the race usually ends.

With dark clouds closing in and Gordon's brakes on the fritz, crew chief Steve Letarte called the car into the pits for an early service call. Gordon relinquished the lead on the stop, but Letarte figured his driver would cycle back to the front after everyone else made their scheduled stops.

And he assumed it would start raining while Gordon was leading. It was a gamble, because the earlier pit stop had put Gordon off sequence with the rest of the field. If it didn't rain quickly, he'd have to pit much earlier than everyone else and would fall deep into the field after the stop.

But if it did rain in that short window, they'd be out front and inherit the win when the race was called.

It worked perfectly, as the sky opened seconds before Newman closed in on Gordon and NASCAR stopped the race. They still had to wait about 35 minutes for NASCAR to call the event, handing Gordon his fourth win at Pocono and first since 1998.

``Steve Letarte, he won this race today,'' Gordon said. ``We had a great race car, but without track position and without a great risky call like that ... I can't believe we just won this race.''

Drivers had to wait again after last week's race at Dover was pushed back a day because of rain. The Pocono 500 became a race to the 101st lap to make it official, leading to some hard and frantic racing early on a track more known for some leisurely stretches in the first half.

Martin Truex Jr. was third and Casey Mears fourth in the first Nextel Cup race since former NASCAR chairman Bill France Jr. died on Monday. A moment of silence was held before the green flag dropped and a prayer was said at the end of the driver's meeting to ``remember the France family and continue to comfort them.''

``Bill and his entire family did so much for the sport,'' Gordon said. ``You know, we wouldn't be here with these sponsors all over the cars and the fans in the stands and be this excited about pit strategy wins if this sport wasn't as popular as it is. And that would never be possible without Bill France Jr., without Bill France Sr. and the France family.''

Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin took fifth and sixth. Hamlin swept both races on the 2.5-mile triangle track last season and failed in his bid to become only the third driver to win three straight here.

Kurt Busch, docked 100 points for his pit road run-in with Stewart at Dover, was 16th.

Jimmie Johnson, who entered second in the points standings, blew his left front tire 91 laps into the race causing his No. 48 Chevrolet to spark and smoke into pit road. Johnson, who swept Pocono in 2004, took his car to the garage and he finished 42nd.

Gordon won for the fourth time in the last seven races to go along with Victory Lane celebrations at Phoenix, Talladega and Darlington.

``The 24 snookered all of us pretty bad,'' Truex said. ``I think five or 10 more laps and we had a shot at the win.''