Jeff Gordon finishes 7th, keeps Sprint Cup points lead going into Easter break - MotorSportsTalk

After taking the Sprint Cup points lead for the first time since the 2009 season following a second place finish at Texas, Jeff Gordon was among 12 leaders in Saturday night’s Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway before going on to take seventh.

It wasn’t what Gordon was hoping for, but it will enable him to keep the championship edge through the Easter holiday.

When NASCAR returns to action in two weeks at Richmond International Raceway, Gordon will enter “The Action Track” with a slim, one-point lead over Matt Kenseth, who finished fourth and also had a brief spell at the front on Saturday.

Then again, everyone’s turn at the front was brief compared to that of race winner Kevin Harvick, who led 238 laps en route to his first career win at Darlington.

Going back to Gordon, he figured that for a time, he had a car more than capable of matching Harvick’s.

“I thought we were a little bit better than him on certain runs,” he told Fox Sports. “But there towards the end, we kind of started fading. I got into the wall a little bit and got the right side flattened up a little bit.

“From there, our night went downhill. We just made some mistakes and got behind. We were the last car on two tires [going into the final restart] and we just got ate up on those restarts. But…It’s not bad to come home seventh. I thought it was going to be worse than that.”

Gordon quickly moved from ninth on the grid and passed Joey Logano for the lead on Lap 38, two laps before Ryan Truex crashed to trigger the yellow.

But on the restart at Lap 47, Gordon was unable to hold back Harvick and Kyle Busch, who both got ahead of him before the field reached Turn 2. However, he would re-claim second from Busch just a few laps later.

From there, Gordon would hover around the Top 5 for the majority of the race, running second at multiple points. He briefly mentioned a possible overheating issue with around 80 to go, but said issue did not evolve into something serious.

Gordon was second to Harvick with 50 laps remaining, but after what proved to be the final cycle of green-flag stops, he had fallen back to fifth. He’d claw to fourth after taking two tires during a caution with 10 laps to go, but was unable to hold serve on the late rash of restarts.

“I feel like it was a missed opportunity, but we had another great race car and I’m happy about that,” Gordon said.

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An IndyCar executive said there is “absolutely” disappointment that its long-awaited video game recently was delayed beyond its target date, but the series remains optimistic about the new title.

“Well, I don’t know how quick it will be, but the whole situation is important to us,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said during a news conference Monday morning to announce IndyCar’s NTT title sponsorship. “Motorsport Games has spent a lot of money, a lot of effort to create an IndyCar title. What we’ve seen of that effort, which is not completely obvious, is very reassuring.

“I think it’s going to be outstanding. That’s our shared objective, that when it is released, it’s just widely accepted. A great credit both to IndyCar racing, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, something that our fans love.”

In June 2021, IndyCar announced a new partnership with Motorsport Games to create and distribute an IndyCar video game for the PC and Xbox and PlayStation consoles in 2023.

But during an earnings call last week, Motorsport Games said the IndyCar game had been delayed to 2024 to ensure high quality.

Somewhat compounding the delay is that IndyCar’s license for iRacing expired after the end of the 2022 season because of its exclusive agreement with Motorsport Games.

That’s resulted in significant changes for IndyCar on iRacing, which had provided a high-profile way for the series to stay visible during its 2020 shutdown from the pandemic. (Players still can race an unbranded car but don’t race on current IndyCar tracks, nor can they stream).

That’s helped ratchet up the attention on having a video game outlet for IndyCar.

“I wish we had an IndyCar title 10 years ago,” said Miles, who has been working with the organization since 2013. “We’ve been close, but we’ve had these I think speed bumps.”

IndyCar is hopeful the Motorsports Game edition will be ready at the start of 2024. Miles hinted that beta versions could be unveiled to reporters ahead of the time “to begin to show the progress in a narrow way to make sure we’ve got it right, to test the progress so that we’re ready when they’re ready.”

It’s been nearly 18 years since the release of the most recent IndyCar video game for console or PC.

“(We) better get it right,” Miles said. “It’s something we’re very close to and continue to think about what it is to make sure we get it over the line in due course.”