Jeff Gordon is focusing on running well tomorrow at Phoenix International Raceway, but everyone else seems to be focusing on the brawl between his and Clint Bowyer’s crews last fall in NASCAR’s last visit to the desert.
The two drivers’ on-track incidents in the final laps touched off a post-race fight in the garage, and Bowyer also made an attempt to confront Gordon at his transporter (he was stopped by security when he got there). Kevin Harvick’s victory in the race was pretty much buried by the fracas, which easily became of NASCAR’s more memorable moments of 2012.
Both racers, along with 41 others, will be more worried about how the new Generation-6 cars work on PIR’s one-mile oval in the Subway Fresh Fit 500k. But Gordon has acknowledged the hype that has surrounded himself and Bowyer this weekend.
“It’s hard to get away from [the fight],” the four-time Sprint Cup champion said to the media at PIR. “They’re still using it to advertise for the race and it was a big story.”
Indeed, it was. Gordon was fined a whopping $100,000 for his role in the altercations and also lost 25 driver points as well.
But he knows he can’t think about it too much, as he’ll have plenty of other things to deal with on Sunday. As for what he’ll do if he should come across Bowyer on the track, Gordon has maintained that he won’t race him differently.
“We’ll race hard,” he said. “We’ll race hard for position and hopefully we don’t have any incidents. I can’t run every lap worrying about every guy I’ve ever had an incident with.”
Gordon will start fifth in his bid to win at PIR for a third time. Bowyer’s taking the green flag from 13th position.
