LONG POND — Jeff Gordon ended his career at Pocono Raceway by doing what he always seemed to be able to do there.
Nobody wound up more surprised by this one final top-10 finish at the Tricky Triangle, though, than Gordon himself.
The wacky ending to the Windows 10 400 at the 2.5-mile course saw Gordon cross the start-finish line — which happened to have his last name emblazoned across it as a tribute — in third place. It marked the 32nd time in his 46 career races at Pocono that Gordon finished in the top 10. But he knew this was hardly a dominant effort.
“I’m not exactly sure where I started on that last restart — it was probably 15th or 16th — and I can’t even say we passed many cars,” Gordon said. “I thought we were trying to get 10th or 12th. Then all of a sudden, they’re telling us we were third. It was a shock for us out there on the racetrack.”
The varying fuel mileage strategies that came to define one of the most intriguing finishes in the Sprint Cup Series’ long history at the raceway took away what looked like a sure win for youngster Joey Logano and a certain second for Kyle Busch. But as Logano, Busch, the winner of Pocono’s June race Martin Truex Jr., and others ran out of fuel at varying points over the final two laps, Gordon took advantage in what is anticipated to be the retiring NASCAR legend’s final race at Pocono.
Gordon found himself in 18th place on the race’s 120th lap, but he took the lead on Lap 127 before he finally darted down pit road. He left his stop buried in the middle of a pack that ultimately left 39 of the 43 cars that started the race running at the end.
But the cars at the front of the pack — many of which started pitting three laps before Gordon did — began to spend their fuel. Good to go, Gordon hit the gas as his main competitors ducked aside. He claimed a third-place finish to close out a glorious career at Pocono, where he won a track-record six races and is the track’s all-time leader in career laps led, with 1,040.
Nobody else has more than Geoffrey Bodine’s 810.
“My memories here at Pocono right from the very beginning have been great,” Gordon said after the race. “I enjoyed the challenges of this racetrack: The shifting, the three unique turns, how you have to set up the person you are racing. It makes for some frustrating moments at times, but also a lot of fun when you complete it. We’ve had some great victories here, as well.
“The (final) script I had played out in my head was, we were going to (finish) 15th. This was way better than that.”