Jeff Gordon Sits on the Pole, Crashes, and Finishes 33rd; But is Still Smiling?
By: Pete MacDonald
Jeff Gordon had one of the fastest cars down here during Speedweek’s at Daytona International Speedway after sitting on the pole for his final Daytona 500; it seemed that everything surrounded the 4-Time Sprint Cup Champion this week. Gordon would run up front early and often in The Great American race leading 87 of the 200 scheduled laps.
Gordon would be involved with the final caution of the even that also ended the Daytona 500 when Austin Dillon made contact with the Left-Rear of Gordon triggering a multi car incident down the backstretch on the final lap relegating Gordon to a 33rd place finish, but after just crashing out of your final Daytona 500 after leading the most laps the last thing you would think Gordon would be doing is smiling.
“For some reason I’m still smiling, I enjoyed every moment of today, what an amazing car we had, we got shuffled back and couldn’t get going again, I’m not going to miss those final laps, I certainly would have like a shot at it”, said Gordon post-race.
Jeff Gordon announced in late January that this will be his last full time season in the Sprint Cup Series opening the door for 2014 NASCAR xFinity Series Champion Chase Elliott to drive the number 24 in 2016.
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