For most of her first race since an accident over the same track at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C., Friday night, Tina Gordon proved that she had put all that behind her.
Then, on the final of 126 laps of the Hardee’s 200, Gordon’s No. 31 Microtel Inns & Suites Dodge was involved in an accident while competing with 12 other NASCAR Craftsman Truck series drivers on the lead lap.
The accident took her out just before she could finish the race, but she still came back to her Cedar Bluff home with a very respectable 13th-place finish.
That moved her up two notches to 18th place in the season series standings and kept her second among rookies in points.
Gordon has run in four of the five truck series races this year, failing to qualify the last two times. She was awarded a provisional based on points standings the past week, but the earlier Martinsville race was based on 2002 points, keeping Gordon out of the field.
The 13th-place finish was Gordon’s best yet in the truck series. She has improved each race, ending 22nd after qualifying 24th in the season-opening race at Daytona, with an accident ending her day. She qualified 30th and placed 18th at Darlington and was 28th-fastest qualifier at Bakersfield and wound up 17th “[Crew Chief] Todd [Myers] and the crew did an excellent job of putting a great truck under me this weekend,” said Gordon. “The truck handled really well for me, and I was able to put it pretty much wherever I wanted to all night.” Myers had predicted that the team could possibly net its first top-ten of the season Friday night, and he was almost correct.
Gordon’s truck also won the Waste Management award given to the team who improves the most positions during the course of the race. She is still holding on to the second spot in the Raybestos Rookie of the Year chase.
“Our finishes seem to be getting better and better every race,” noted Gordon. “It was great to leave Charlotte finishing 13th in the first ever NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series there. Now we are ready to shoot for our first top ten in this series.” Prepared by Myers and his crew, Gordon’s truck performed flawlessly all night long. All of these things made for a great night up until the last lap of the race when the Microtel Inns & Suites Dodge was wrecked by a lapped truck. “To have our best finish of the season dampened by such an unnecessary event on the last lap of the race by a lapped truck was very disappointing,” pointed out Gordon. “I hope that Bill Lester has learned a valuable lesson after this weekend. The next time he finds himself in that situation, he will hopefully use his head.
“There was nothing for Lester to gain or lose as far as positions go, by wrecking us. It’s sad that the ones who lost were my team as well as several others. “It was a very costly mistake that cost not only us a truck, but several other teams as well. “We don’t all have the budget that Bill Lester and his team has. Losing the truck in such an unfortunate way could possibly keep us from running in Dover at the end of the month.” Unfortunate incidents aside, the team is thrilled to have moved even closer to its first top-ten finish and to have improved yet again in the overall points.
