Jeff Gordon wins the Dodge/Save Mart 350

June 25

Maybe what Jeff Gordon needed all along was the love of a good woman.

Jeff Gordon, from bottom, leads the field including Ryan Newman, Kurt Busch, Tony Stewart, Greg Biffle, Kevin Harvick and Boris Said en route to winning the Dodge/ Save Mart 350 Nascar Nextel Cup auto race in Sonoma, Calif. on Sunday, June 25, 2006.
(AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
Dodge/Save Mart 350 Results

Saturday night Jeff Gordon announced his engagement to girlfriend, model Ingrid Vandebosch. Then on Sunday, Gordon capped his weekend by scoring his first win of the year.

For Gordon the victory in the Dodge/Save Mart 350 was a much-needed one; breaking a nineteen race winless streak and more importantly vaulting the four-time champion into the top ten in points. He leaves Infineon Raceway in eighth position.

It was Gordon’s seventy-fourth career victory and his ninth on a road course giving him the record among active drivers.

“I didn’t know if we were ever going to win another one of these races,” Gordon said form victory lane. “This is a special weekend for me and this team.”

Gordon dominated the second half of the race with his only threat coming from veteran Terry Labonte. Labonte’s crew chief, Philippe Lopez elected to keep him out after the final round of green flag stops, gambling on fuel mileage.

There would be no denying Gordon however. He caught and passed Labonte late in the event and held onto the lead after the second red flag period of the race, stretching out that lead with five laps to go to score his fifth win at Infineon.

The race actually sputtered to a start after a four-car crash before the first lap was over forced NASCAR to display the first red flag for nearly twelve minutes.

Once the race did underway, the Penske Racing duo of Kurt Busch and Ryan Newman looked to make some noise. Busch, who led from the pole, took command early followed by Newman.

Busch held the point until a cycle of green flag pit stops at lap twenty-nine. Busch stalled his car in the pits while NASCAR nailed Tony Stewart, who had assumed the lead temporarily, for speeding on pit road. Both would reenter the race, Busch in third behind Newman and leader Kevin Harvick; Stewart in twelfth after serving his stop and go penalty.

-(Cont'd from front page) Newman took the lead from Harvick on lap thirty-eight, leading his first laps of the season.

Jeff Gordon who had started eleventh, was finally able to catch and pass Newman on lap fifty.

Terry Labonte, who is in his final year of full-time competition was off pit sequence with the leaders and took over the top spot after final round of green flag stops with about forty laps to go. His crew felt they had enough fuel to make the distance and Labonte settled into a fuel conservation mode that he hoped would bring the team at least a top ten finish. Gordon began to make up about a second a lap on Labonte however and by lap eighty-eight caught and passed Labonte.

Despite the challenge of a second red flag period, brought out when Joe Nemechek, Dale Jarrett, Kyle Petty, Reed Sorenson, J.J. Yeley and Bobby Labonte tangled leaving debris strewn on the rack, Gordon took the green flag on lap 109 and never looked back.

Newman passed Labonte on the final lap to finish in the runner-up position; his second top five of the season.

“I wish we could have won the race, but at least we had ourselves in position,” Newman said. “We got our second top five of the season, and I’m ready for Daytona.

I was quicker than Jeff Gordon at the start of the day. He was quicker at the start of a run, and I was quicker at the end of a run. It was the end of the run, so Terry blocked me and held me up a little bit. He did what he needed to do, and I’m happy we finished second.”

Tony Stewart suffered through a terrible day, tangling with road course ace Boris Said and limping home to a twenty-eighth place finish with a sour engine.

Point’s leader Jimmie Johnson made another amazing recovery, spinning midway through the race, hitting no one and pointing in the right direction, but dropping from seventh to fourteenth. Johnson would come back to finish tenth.

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