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© St. Petersburg Times, published November 6, 2001
Jeff Gordon couldn't have been that bad on purpose.
Could he?
To wrap up a fourth Winston Cup championship, all Gordon needs is to avoid catastrophe. So, was that all he did Sunday at North Carolina Speedway -- ride in the back to stay out of trouble?
Not likely.
True, he finished 25th. Three laps down. Worse than Dave Blaney. But Gordon says he came by that poor showing honestly. The team missed the setup and failed during a race with only two caution periods to make the necessary adjustments.
"I don't know what happened," said Gordon, who posted his worst finish in the past seven races. "Somehow, we got extremely loose, and we never got it back. We're scratching our heads. That was a pretty bad run for us, and we're embarrassed by it."
Ricky Rudd, who was eighth, trimmed 54 points off Gordon's lead, but trails by 326 with three races left. Gordon can clinch the title in the Pennzoil 400 Sunday at Homestead by picking up 44 points on Rudd or by finishing 28th or better in the remaining races.
In other words, he can afford three more days like Sunday.
Gordon says he had a miserable time steering his ill-handling No. 24 Chevrolet around the 1.017-mile oval. Always on the verge of spinning out, he said, is no way to play it safe.
"That setup was not the type of setup that you run to be conservative," Gordon said. "That's the type of setup that you hope will get you a top-five. But it got us in trouble.
"When you have a car like that, you're actually working doubly hard. When the car is that sideways you're just trying to hang on and drive it as fast as you can but keep the car going straight and stay out of the way of the guys who are coming through."
Gordon hopes to rebound at Homestead.
"It doesn't matter what kind of point lead we have," he said. "We can have trouble and it can happen in a lot of different ways. We tested at Homestead and I feel very good about what we have there, so hopefully we can go there and not have a lousy day like we had (Sunday)."
DELAYED RESULT: Lakeland native Joe Nemechek, who got his second career victory Sunday, lost eight weeks to injuries sustained in a July testing accident at Dover. Otherwise, he said, the No. 33 Chevrolet might have won sooner.
"When I got hurt, we had a lot of momentum going for us," said Nemechek, who had head and neck injuries and a broken collarbone. "We were on target to get a win early."
Nemechek hated seeing someone else drive his car.
"That's my office out there and I didn't want to see anybody else using it," said Nemechek, who will move to the No. 26 Ford next season because the No. 33 is losing its sponsor. "That's my pride. But we came back. When you get knocked down, you've got to get back up as quick as you can."
BOW TIE OCCASION: Nemechek's victory clinched consecutive manufacturer's titles for Chevrolet, which leads the series with 15 wins by seven drivers. Gordon was the top Chevy 16 times this season, including a series-high six victories, in contributing 102 of Chevy's 229 points.
Ford has 11 wins, Pontiac four and Dodge three.
STEWART A CHAMPION: Tony Stewart became a champion car owner in his first season when Danny Lasoski locked up the World of Outlaws title with a ninth-place finish in Saturday night's season finale in Las Vegas.
"When I received the phone call I felt like a kid on Christmas morning," said Stewart, who took the call at 3 a.m. Sunday. "Never in my wildest dreams did I feel this was really possible this year, but I am so proud to be a part of it."
REMEMBER THIS GUY?: Dale Jarrett, whose run at the championship took a nose dive in late July, had four top-10s in the past five races. Fourth in the standings, he trails third-place Stewart by 53.