Motorsports

Hendrick teammates can't get geared up

SONOMA, Calif. - Transmission woes took a heavy toll Sunday in the Dodge/Save Mart 350, costing Jimmie Johnson the points lead and forcing teammate Jeff Gordon to raise questions about a run for the championship.

"I'm getting to the point where I don't care about points. I don't even care about the championship," a disgusted Gordon said. "All I care about is getting our stuff going and getting ourselves to be in these races where we can be in contention to win."

After starting from the pole and leading the first 32 laps Sunday at twisting Infineon Raceway, a linkage problem cost Gordon a lap and any chance at repeating his victory here last year. He wound up 33rd, next to last on the lead lap.

Johnson's car kept sticking in third gear and he saw his 49-point lead over Greg Biffle coming into the race turn into a 22-point deficit.

Biffle finished 14th and Johnson, 36th, one lap behind winner Tony Stewart .

"Some other guys that were running the same brand (transmission) had some problems too. We just won't use it again," Johnson said.

Kyle Busch was the third Hendrick Motorsports entry to lock in gear, ending up 13 laps down in 40th place.

And Dale Earnhardt Jr. suffered another blow to his hopes to make the Chase for the Championship; gearbox woes relegated him to 42nd.

"I didn't have first or second gear from the first lap," the downcast Earnhardt said. "We tried a new transmission here and it hadn't given me troubles all weekend. Right from the first corner ... I couldn't get into second. Then it just tore it all out."

He lost a spot in the standings, falling to 18th, 543 points out. Only the top 10 and all others within 400 points make the Chase in the final 10 races.

BIFFLE'S BLISS: Biffle rejoiced as he took the Nextel Cup points lead for the first time in his career.

"It sounds really good," he said. "We wanted better than a 14th place finish here and think we deserved it, but it was just unfortunate the caution came out towards the end. We lost about six spots because of that, so that might have moved us into the top 10 - probably eighth - but we were off a little bit today."

Biffle, who also leads the series with five victories this season, said he stayed on the track and off the gas to conserve fuel Sunday. He gained a five-point bonus by leading briefly during a series of green flag pit stops.

RINGERS RATTLED: The so-called "ringers" hired by teams to compete at Infineon - one of two road courses on the Nextel Cup circuit - had a mixed day.

Journeyman road racer Ron Fellows fared the best, finishing eighth after starting last in the 43-car field.

Brian Simo , who had not raced in the series in four years, overcame a multicar accident with P.J. Jones , Kyle Petty and Carl Edwards in the tightest turn on the course to finish 10th.

Boris Said , who has run three oval races this season, had an up and down day, running as high as fourth before a speeding violation on pit road dropped him to 32nd. He recovered to 13th before a late-race collision with Jeff Burton dropped him to 17th at the finish.

The other road racing specialists in the lineup fared worse. Chris Cook finished 28th, Scott Pruett 31st and Tom Hubert was last.

[Last modified June 27, 2005, 01:05:15]