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Hendrick duo lament missed chance

Hendrick Mototsports drivers Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon rued losing out on a possible win in the All-Star race after both were involved in incidents having led much of the contest between them

Johnson had started the event from pole and led the first half of it, only being challenged for victory by Kurt Busch and Gordon in the first segment. He opted for four new tyres to start the second part of the race and lost track position to others only going for right-side tyres.

Later, in the third segment, after going for four new tyres again at the end of the second one, he had a brush with the wall but still finished that 20-lap stint in fifth place. However his hopes were dashed when he spun out of Turn 1 at the start of the final ten-lap sprint.

"Fortunately I didn't hit anything and nobody ran into us," Johnson said about the incident. "But we lost so much track position and at that point we just kept coming to pit road and making changes to the car to try to get some more data for next weekend's race.

"If you weren't in those first two or three rows, you really didn't have a shot. And I was there, but unfortunately got spun around on the back and lost all that track position and was just kind of riding from there.

"The balance of the track really changed through the night and I didn't expect it to have that big of a swing from the start of the race on. I also learned, and I knew this in the back of my mind, but track position was so much more important than I ever thought it would be."

Gordon could not even finish the race after looking a strong candidate to take the win. He followed Johnson's strategy at the end of the first segment, but at the end of the second one he stayed on the track, gained track position and then passed a struggling Kyle Busch to take victory in the third segment.

His race came to an abrupt end however, when he made contact with Busch while fighting for the lead with him and Ryan Newman on lap three of the final segment.

"That's the All-Star race," said Gordon. "Everyone is going for it. There's a lot at stake. There's a lot of pride and money and we're putting on a heck of a show for these fans. We were certainly proud of our team tonight. Man, they were doing awesome.

"We had a great, great racecar. Starting from the pole is a little bit of a disadvantage and so we didn't get a very good restart. Kyle [Busch] got to the outside of us and from that point on I was just fighting hard.

"I didn't even know the #39 [Ryan Newman] got three-wide on the outside. I just ran out of room. It was nobody's fault."

Between Johnson and Gordon they led 61 out of the 100 laps of the All-Star race.

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