Jeff Gordon wins a record third Sprint Cup race at Kansas Speedway

NASCAR’s Jeff Gordon still has the winning touch at Kansas Speedway. Day or night.

Gordon, a four-time Sprint Cup champion, became the first driver to win three races at Kansas Speedway on a surreal Saturday night when the lights temporarily went out on the backstretch during the 5-hour Energy 400, the first Sprint Cup night race at the track.

Gordon, who won the first two Sprint Cup races at Kansas Speedway in 2001 and 2002, took the lead in his Chevrolet with eight laps to go and held off pole sitter Kevin Harvick’s Chevy by 0.112 seconds for his first win of the season in front of a near-sellout crowd.

The victory was Gordon’s first of the season and assured him one of the 16 berths in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. Gordon, the series points leader, is the ninth winner in 11 races this season.

“This has always one of my favorite tracks from that first race,” said Gordon, 42. “I don’t know what it is about this race team and this race track for inaugural events, but this win was very, very special. It didn’t come easy. … Nothing makes me more proud, when it’s all on the lead and we get the lead, and you’ve got to hold off someone like Harvick, and you get it done.

“It might have been by inches, but we got it done.”

Gordon had seven top 10 finishes in the first nine races this season, including runner-up finishes at Texas and Richmond, before posting his 89th win — which ranks third all-time — of his 20-year career.

“We’ve had fast cars … every single weekend,” said Gordon, who led just nine laps in the race. “We’ve been leading the points, but we needed to get to Victory Lane.”

Kasey Kahne, Gordon’s teammate at Hendrick Motorsports, was third in a Chevrolet on a bizarre night from the start.

First, the waving of the green flag by Clint Bowyer’s mother, Jana, was delayed 37 minutes because of a threat of severe weather that never affected the area, save some winds of 20 to 25 mph and eerie-looking skies that were dark in one direction and bright in the other.

But after all, that’s Kansas in May.

The night became even more eerie when the lights outside the backstretch went out about 114 laps into the 267-lap race. The infield lights were still burning, and after a poll of drivers and teams revealed they felt safe enough to continue, the show went on.

“I was on the front stretch, and the light was good, and next time I came through it was dark on the back,” Kahne said. “From that point on, I didn’t remember they were off the rest of the time. It was way darker back there, but you could still see just fine. You kind of forget about it.”

The lack of lighting didn’t bother Harvick, who led a race-most 119 laps.

“I think we’ve raced at darker race tracks,” Harvick said. “If it was dangerous, they wouldn’t have let us go.”

The lights returned to full strength at lap 152, and from that point on, the race was on between Gordon, Harvick and Joey Logano.

Harvick, who has two wins this season, blamed himself for losing the lead when he ran out of fuel.

“I was looking at the fuel pressure gauge instead of the tach and lost a bunch of time down pit road and off of pit road and wound up getting stuck behind the 24 (Gordon),” Harvick said.

“I think we had a good night. You can’t win them all. I made a mistake at the end, and that’s what probably cost us the chance to stay in front of the 24. But the 24 was good all night. We got in the back of the pack and couldn’t go anywhere. It came down to track position, and those guys executed a little bit better than I did.”

Gordon hadn’t been strong at Kansas Speedway since it was resurfaced and reconfigured in 2012, which made Saturday’s win even more special.

“You love winning anywhere, but there’s just something about this track that transitions … the shape in the corners. … I’ve just always enjoyed it,” Gordon said.

“When they did the repave, it threw some challenges at me personally that it wasn’t my best track. But as it’s aged and as we’ve gotten the cars so good, with the tires and everything, it’s come back to a track that I feel comfortable at.”

This story was originally published May 10, 2014 at 10:45 PM with the headline "Jeff Gordon wins a record third Sprint Cup race at Kansas Speedway ."