Saturday night under the lights at Phoenix, Nextel Cup points leader Jeff Gordon scored his first win of the 2007 season. The victory was also his first at the desert track (one of only three NASCAR tracks where he had yet to register a win), and tied him with the late Dale Earnhardt on the all-time victory list (with 76 wins). To commemorate the fact and to pay homage to Eranhardt, Gordon flew his famous “3″ flag on his victory lap.

 Gordon started the race on pole and looked strong all evening long, but he wasn’t the quickest car out there. Gordon was clearly oupaced by the Joe Gibb’s prepared cars of Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin.  Hamlin lead early on and looked a potential winner until a penalty for speeding in the pit lane dropped him to 31st. Hamlin battled back to finish a strong third behind team mate Stewart.

Gordon and Stewart raced hard and close with both drivers making what seemed impossible moves at times, often threading their cars through gaps that didn’t seem to be wide enough.  Gordon was assited by a late caution thrown when he was already in the pits, he exited ahead of the pace car and worked his way back to the front as everyone else pitted under the resultant yellow flag.

 The Top 10 finishers were:

1. Jeff Gordon (Chevrolet)
2. Tony Stewart (Chevrolet)
3. Denny Hamlin (Chevrolet)
4. Jimmie Johnson (Chevrolet)
5. Matt Kenseth (Ford)
6. Jeff Green (Chevrolet)
7. Kyle Busch (Chevrolet)
8. Bobby Labonte (Dodge)
9. Johnny Sauter (Chevrolet)
10. Kevin Harvick (Chevrolet)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007 at 6:12 pm and is filed under NASCAR. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.