Gordon, Kenseth renew rivalry
The everlasting image whenever anyone brings up Jeff Gordon (No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet) and Matt Kenseth (No. 17 DeWalt Ford) in the same sentence is “The Shove.” It happened in March of 2006, at Bristol Motor Speedway. On the final lap, Kenseth wrecked Gordon. On pit road after the race, Kenseth walked over to discuss the situation. Gordon shoved him away. That was only the beginning. Later that season, in July at Chicagoland Speedway, Gordon got his payback. Kenseth was in the lead with four laps to go, with Gordon hard charging in second. Gordon got into the back of Kenseth, and spun him out. That seemed to square things up. That is, until Monday at Martinsville Speedway — where a rivalry was reborn.
On the race’s final restart, with Gordon in the lead, Kenseth bumped the four-time series champion to the outside groove. The lead — and win — had vanished, so Gordon did what he felt he had to do. He got payback, again, pushing Kenseth out of the way in much the same fashion. “The way he raced me today I didn’t think was the way I would have raced him,” Gordon said after the race. “But we’ve had our ups and our downs. But I feel like we’ve been past that. I certainly didn’t feel like we had any issues. “If somebody hits me, I’m going to hit them. If he hit me, I’m glad I did what I did on the back straightaway. If a guy gives you a cheap shot like that, he doesn’t deserve to win the race, in my opinion.”
Kenseth’s defense: He had no choice. “It’s nothing Jeff wouldn’t have done or hasn’t done to me, except he’s wrecked me all the way out, so it was just an aggressive race for the end. We were gonna be side-by-side going into three and four, and the outside lane has actually been an advantage anyway, so it wasn’t gonna be that big of a deal, but, instead, he decided to run me down as low as he could because he knew I’d wreck when I got to the corner. That’s the way it turned out. It was a dumb move on my part.”
Turns out, the incident killed a strong points day for Kenseth. In fact, if none of the above happened, Kenseth would be the series’ points leader right now. Instead, he finished 18th, and currently sits third in the points 16 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson.
