Sep 30, 2002 3 min read

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) – Jeff Gordon shook off his recent slump and revived his bid for a fifth Winston Cup title Sunday, pulling away from a late red-flag restart to win a crash-filled Protection One 400. But for now, at least, the points lead belongs to Gordon’s teammate, rookie Jimmie Johnson.

Gordon, who also won last year’s inaugural Winston Cup event at Kansas Speedway, snapped a three-week string of frustration in which he finished 40th, 14th and 37th after back-to-back wins in the two races before that.

“I kind of put my foot in my mouth last week and said we had to win,” Gordon said. “Luckily, I was able to back that up.”

Gordon led the last 57 laps and 116 laps overall in the 267-lap, 400-mile race and appeared headed for an easy victory until Johnny Benson, Jeremy Mayfield, Jimmy Spencer and Ricky Rudd spun out in the fourth turn with five laps left. The rest of the field parked in the second turn for more than 13 minutes – in 92-degree heat – before starting up again.

“I knew they were going to throw the red flag, but I didn’t realize how hot it was over there,” Gordon said. “I’m completely exhausted.”

Gordon handily held off rookie Ryan Newman on the restart with three laps to go. Rusty Wallace was third, Joe Nemechek fourth and Bill Elliott fifth.

“We’re here to race, and I commend them for wanting to finish the race under green,” Newman said. “When you’re trying to win a race, you can put the heat aside for a few minutes.”

Pole winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. fought his way back from a disastrous pit stop near the midpoint of the race to finish sixth. He was followed in the top 10 by Matt Kenseth, Tony Stewart, Mayfield and Johnson.

The red-flag wreck was one of eight in the race. Only 28 of 43 drivers finished running, a season low.

Johnson’s 10th-place finish gave him an 11-point lead over Martin, who came in leading by 30 points but lost his engine with 17 laps to go and finished 25th.

Stewart stayed in third place but moved up from 44 to 36 points down, and Gordon moved up a spot to fourth, 109 points back of the rookie.

Sterling Marlin, who came into Sunday’s race 81 points behind Martin in fourth place, crashed in the backstretch on the 148th lap after contact with Jeff Burton’s car. Marlin fell back to fifth place, 121 points off the pace.

“It was just hard racing,and that’s part of it,” Marlin said. “I thought today with the way the car was running, we had a good top-five car and we could have gained back a good bit.”

Martin, who has never won a Winston Cup in 20 years, seemed to be getting stronger as the race went on – until his engine went out.

“We were looking at a real sweet finish there, but we couldn’t make it all the way,” he said. “It’s not because we abused any of our stuff. We babied that thing all weekend. It just made up its mind that it wasn’t going to go that far, and it didn’t.”