Gordon gets win, fans’ wrath

TALLADEGA, ALA. —  They went to jail for Dale on Sunday.

But not all the culprits were handcuffed and hauled away after a massive bombardment with full beer cans from the grandstands met Jeff Gordon’s 77th career victory, which surpassed the lifetime total of the late Dale Earnhardt on the icon’s birthday.

The reception was so nasty after Gordon won the Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway that he couldn’t even decide whether to feel elated or guilty over breaking a tie with Earnhardt for sixth on NASCAR’s all-time winners list at the track where Earnhardt is still worshipped most.

“I certainly didn’t want to start a riot today,” Gordon said, “and hopefully nobody got injured with what happened. But I wanted to break the record, and it’s pretty awesome to do it here today. So I keep going back and forth: ‘It’s cool,’ then, ‘Oh, man, why did it have to happen at Talladega?’ ”

Fewer than 10 hurlers were detained and no injuries were reported, according to track officials who’d repeatedly warned fans before the race that they would be arrested for such a display. It was simply too hard to spot and catch all the perpetrators in a crowd estimated at more than 180,000.

As the field came to the checkered flag under caution, the exploding beer cans around the line of cars made them appear like a line of ships in a convoy with bombs exploding all around them and sometimes hitting them.

Said Gordon’s teammate, Jimmie Johnson, who finished second, “I could see in the mirror that there were a lot more behind us. I’m not sure if they were upset because the race finished under caution, or if it was at Jeff.”

Gordon drove up alongside the front-stretch fence and began doing a celebratory burnout. The storm intensified, and NASCAR officials told Gordon to go immediately to Victory Lane.

The win put Gordon in a commanding 203-point lead over Jeff Burton in the Nextel Cup standings, leaving fans with the extra-inflammatory feeling that he could be on his way to a fifth season championship.

Gordon dominated most of the race, leading the most laps, 71, of the 192 that included four laps of overtime.

Gordon got shuffled back in the draft late in the race but stormed back to take the lead on Lap 185 and held it at the start of the green-white-checkered finish.

But only half a lap into the overtime sprint, a wreck on the backstretch brought out the final caution, freezing the field and leaving Gordon the winner -- and the target.

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Ed Hinton covers auto racing for Tribune newspapers.