Watkins Glen: Robby Gordon does it again

The key to Gordon's success was being in the right place at the right time when Rusty Wallace slid off the track in front of him, due to a front brake failure, at the penultimate corner. Robby was able to dive into the pits before the yellow flag was thrown, which gifted him the lead after the leading runners made their final stops for fuel.

In the dash to the flag, Gordon held a comfortable margin over road course ringer Scott Pruett but admitted he was fortunate to be in that position at all.

"I don't know if we had the best car today, but we won the race," he said. "I knew it was going to be close [on fuel], but track position was so important today."

Someone who didn't get his fuel sums right was Jeff Gordon. The pole-sitter was pushed into a spin at the first corner by fellow front row starter Greg Biffle, but fought back superbly to run third at the start of the final lap. But his charge had used too much juice, and he ran out of gas at the final corner.

Jeff would have been able to coast across the line, but was hit twice from behind by Brickyard 400 winner Kevin Harvick and was shoved into the wall. His wrecked machine was agonisingly close to the finish line, but was going no further. His day was made complete when it took a long time for medical assistance to reach him, and the ambulance then got stuck in a traffic jam on the way to the medical centre.

"I punted him off, but if you run out of gas the best thing to do is to get off the road," said Harvick, while Gordon, who was uninjured, countered: "I was trying to get out of his way, but I feel he was fighting a little too hard."

Dale Earnhardt scored his best ever road course Winston Cup finish in third, ahead of Jimmie Johnson (who started from the back of the grid), Harvick (who suffered a pit fire early on) and Ward Burton.