Jeff Gordon back at Daytona, has slight mishap early on in Rolex 24 stint - MotorSportsTalk

It’s been 10 years since Jeff Gordon’s last and only prior appearance in the Rolex 24 (2007), one of the biggest sports car races in the world.

But even with all the changes in sports car racing design and technology over the last decade, it’s clear that the retired four-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion hasn’t lost much.

Gordon was the second driver for Wayne Taylor Racing to take the track Saturday afternoon at Daytona International Speedway. Gordon replaced race starter Ricky Taylor at approximately 1 hour, 48 minutes into the 24-hour event. Taylor ran the first three scheduled stints behind the wheel until yielding to Gordon.

It was especially fortuitous that Gordon’s stint in the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R began when it did – Taylor was leading the Prototype class at the time.

Gordon and Taylor made the quickest pit stop and driver exchange of the Prototype cars on that particular stop.

However, Gordon was only about 10 minutes into his run when he made contact with the No. 70 Mazda of Tom Long, which was attempting to transition back onto the racetrack after pitting. The contact forced Long into the grass, but he was able to recover once the field passed him. Gordon, meanwhile, had just minor cosmetic damage to the left front end of his Cadillac.

The incident caused Gordon to fall back slightly to third-place, where he ran just before the two-hour, 30-minute mark. Shortly after that, and with pit stops by several other teams, Gordon climbed back into first place. Gordon then came onto pit road for service about 2 hours, 36 minutes into the race and resumed his place in third position behind class leader Seb Morris and second-place Christian Fittipaldi.

Gordon drove two stints and exited the car at about 3 hours, 11 minutes, yielding to veteran Max Angelelli. The 50-year-old veteran Italian driver is making his final career appearance in the Rolex 24.

“These restarts are crazier than NASCAR restarts,” Gordon told Fox Sports about the incident with Long. “I wanted to be cautious because I was on cold tires. The tires were sliding around pretty good when I got into Turn 3. I feel sorry I got into him and spun him. … I hope they put me back in there again because I had so much fun.”

Gordon is expected to drive in at least one more stint before the endurance race completes at 2:30 pm ET on Sunday (he’ll most likely drive again Saturday evening). For the team to get full credit points-wise, Gordon has to drive a minimum of at least two hours within that 24-hour period.

In Gordon’s only other Rolex 24 appearance, he was part of the SunTrust Racing team in 2007, which started second and finished third.

Gordon, who filled in eight races for Dale Earnhardt Jr. last season, in what was originally supposed to be his first retirement year from NASCAR, has been looking forward to his return to Daytona in a sports car.

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Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

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