Wild points day for Chasers at TMS...Gordon finishes 13th and gains 80

Ft. Worth - Mark Martin, No. 5 CARQUEST/Kellogg's Impala SS, closed the gap in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings with a fourth-place finish today at Texas Motor Speedway.  Martin is second in points, down 73 markers, with two races remaining in the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) season.

Jeff Gordon, No. 24 DuPont Impala SS, fought handling issues throughout the race to finish 13th and maintain his third place position in the standings.  The four-time NSCS champion is 112 points behind Johnson and 39 points down to Martin. 
 
Points leader Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe's/KOBALT Tools Impala SS, was involved in a multi-car incident on the third lap. The three-time and defending champion's car was severely damaged and remained in the garage for over an hour and a total of 113 laps but went on to finish the race in 38th place, 129 laps down.  
 
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT IMPALA SS, FINISHED 13TH: "Our finish is thanks to the hard work by Steve Letarte (crew chief) and this DuPont Chevrolet team. Never giving up. I am just really disappointed in this day. A total missed opportunity that completely got away from us. We just didn't have it today. We had more of our typical Texas race where we needed our spectacular Texas race like we had in Texas."

YOU FINISHED 13TH AND PICKED UP 80 POINTS ON JIMMIE JOHNSON IN THE POINTS BATTLE BUT I KNOW IT WASN'T THE KIND OF DAY YOU HAD HOPED FOR, HOW WOULD YOU ASSESS IT? "I think more than anything a missed opportunity. I'm just terrible at this place. I don't know what it is. I can qualify and the guys gave a real good car on Friday but I just don't have the feel for this place. I don't know what it is. It just challenged us all day today. We seemed to be the best at the beginning of the race and we made some adjustments trying to make it better based on what I was telling them and we just went backwards from there and lost some track position. So it was a frustrating day. Kind of a more typical Texas day for us rather than what we had in April. So it was a missed opportunity when the No. 48 had trouble so I'm bummed about that. Steve Letarte did a great job getting us to 13th, the whole team did. Great call there at the end. We'll go to Phoenix and Homestead."