A new Cup winner & a new mark for Jeff Gordon

Jeff Gordon went to Victory Lane ... but this was only to visit briefly. Same for Carl Edwards. Thing was they were there to congratulate David Reutimann on his win in Saturday night's race at Chicagoland Speedway.

Reutimann is a driver many others like. They appreciate his self-deprecating humor, his easy-going manner and some likely appreciate his work to get to Cup (he didn't make his series debut until he was 35 -- anciet in today's era of getting as young of drivers as possible). Now that doesn't mean everyone likes Reutimann, but the sentiment among some drivers was that they were glad to see him win if they couldn't.

"I want to say a special congratulations to David,'' Edwards said. "He is a class act. A really great guy. It's cool to see how happy he is.''

Said Gordon: "David is a neat guy. I just know that that win that he had in Charlotte (last year's rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600), while he took it ... earning it the way he earned it tonight is the way he wants to do it.''

Ahh, yes, that Coke 600 last year. It was a great moment for Reutimann but also one overshadowed by the fact rain ended it early.

Ty Norris, general manager at Michael Waltrip Racing, said Reutimann won’t have to face questions about this win.

 “I’ve probably not see anyone have to walk around for a year and a half apologizing about winning a race,’’ Norris said. “Winning that Coke 600 because of the rain, everyone sort of had the asterisk next to that win. (The win) is redemption for David.’’

  Said Reutimann, who climbed two spots to 15th in the points: “I felt like … no pun intended, there was a dark cloud hanging over our head that whole time with that win in the 600.’’  

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GOOD NEWS/BAD NEWS FOR JEFF GORDON

Jeff Gordon scored his fifth consecutive top-five finish by placing third. He also moved closer to points leader Kevin Harvick. Gordon now trails Harvick by 103 points.

But but losing Saturday night, Gordon has now gone 48 races since his last win -- which came at Texas in April 2009). This is now the longest winless drought in Gordon's career.

"I don't care,'' Gordon said of the new mark. "We were talking earlier there was a point in my career where I was winning every third race and now I win three out of 100. That's just the way life is.''

Even so, Gordon is certainly a title contender. He left Chicago further encouaged by his progress but also with some questions on what the car did late.

"We were trying some new and different things,'' Gordon said. "I felt like we were decent but (Reutimann) I felt like was really a class of his own and I'm more anxious to see some things. We noticed some things off of cars sitting  on pit road (before the race). Those type of things you learn from. We're going to keep working hard at it and see where we get to.''

As for the way he's running, Gordon said: "We're very optimistic. We've got a great package going to Indy. We've been working really, really hard on everything that we can to find speed. We think we've got some things up our sleeve for Indy.''

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CLOSE BUT NOT CLOSE ENOUGH FOR CARL

Carl Edwards finished a season-best second but he admits he was "bittersweet'' after the race.

"You want to win, but we are obviously very happy with the result,'' he said. "If we run that well every week, we will win plenty of races. The key is that we ran so well.''

Still, he could taste victory Saturday.

"Three more laps and we would have been right there, but you never really know I guess because it depends on how hard he is running, too, but I feel like with three more laps things would have gotten really interesting.''

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WHAT THEY SAID

Dale Earnhardt Jr. on finishing 23rd and falling out of the top 12 in points: "We had just a really (bad) driving car all night. We made it worse at times and made it better at times. We just weren't very good. There aren't any excuses. we just weren't very good.''

Jamie McMurray, who finished fifth: "I feel like we are a car that needs to be in the Chase. We already have a win and we seem to run well enough. I will let (crew chief Kevin Manion) worry about that because every time I pay attention to points, something bad happens.''

Kasey Kahne, who finished sixth: "It was a good team effort. We had good pit calls and good pit stops. We probably should have finished fifth. It was a good effort. We got way too loose there at the center part of hte race and it was tough to pass. The aero here  is really difficult.'

Kurt Busch, who finished 26th: "It was just a tough night. This one has us scratching our heads a bit since we've been so strong on the mile and a half tracks. We just missed it tonight. We threw wholesale changes at it including front shocks midway through the race and that's about as good as our car was all night.

Denny Hamlin, who was 8th: "It was a struggle for us. We just didn't have a great car. We had about a 12th-place car. ... We never finish in the top 10. It's either top-five and win or nothing. It was important for us today to build on what we need for these bigger race tracks, and I think we have a better idea.''

Clint Bowyer, who finished fourth: "We've just got to continue to do what we did tonight. We've had those race cars and we can't get the finish with them. Finally the caution didn't come out at the end and ... everything was good.''

Jimmie Johnson, who finished 25th on his spin: "I followed Jeff into the corner and got tight being behind him and (Martin Truex Jr.) was trying to squeeze in there on the white line and I just think the air, being that close to me, disrupted my car and I just couldn't catch it.''

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ODDS AND ENDS

# Kevin Harvick said they had to repair a fuel pump assembly and that's why he went to the garage and lost a number of laps before returning. He finished 34th.

# Saturday night's race at Chicagoland Speedway was the final Cup broadcast of the season for TNT. ESPN and ABC take over the rest of the Cup season, beginning at Indianapolis in two weeks.

# Michael Waltrip Racing has a press conference planned at Indianapolis to officially announce David Reutimann's contract extension.

# Clint Bowyer climbed into the top 12 in points and knocked Dale Earnhardt Jr out.  Bowyer is 12th. He's 15 points ahead of Dale Jr.

# Four drivers are within 100 points of 12th-place Clint Bowyer for the last Chase spot with 7 races to go until the Chase field is set: Dale Jr is 15 points back; Mark Martin is 37 points back; David Reutimann is 96 points back; and Ryan Newman is 99 points back.

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SOMETHING TO MAKE YOU GO HMMMM

Saturday marked Jeff Gordon's 600th consecutive start, a streak that started at the season finale at Atlanta on Nov. 15, 1992. Carl Edwards was asked where he was at that time and this is what he said:

"I remember I was I was at the grocery story ... with my Mom and I picked up a racing magazine on the race and remember thinking how this guy had it made. (Edwards turns to Gordon) "There you were on the cover of the magazine standing next to your race car. You had a cool race car, driver suit, mustache and mullet.''

So what were you doing when Gordon made his debut? Hmmmmmm

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