"Typical Texas, we just started losing the handle on it as the sun went down," Gordon said. "Lost that track position on one run where we got real loose."
Gordon got back on the lead lap when he was the beneficiary of a caution on lap 264 of the 334-lap NASCAR Sprint Cup Dickies 500 and worked his way back to a second-place finish behind Carl Edwards.
"You can't apologize for finishing second on a day like today," Gordon said. "That was like a win."
But Texas is still one of the two active tracks where Gordon, the four-time Sprint Cup champion with 81 race victories, has never won. The 11/2-mile high-banked track is also where Gordon has his only two last-place finishes in 543 career races, including April.
Gordon has only two more chances to avoid his first winless season since he was a rookie driver in 1993.
The next race is at Phoenix, where Gordon didn't win until 2006, and Homestead, the other track where he still hasn't won a Cup race.
"We're not going to give up, that's for sure," Gordon said. "Just like going for the pole (at Texas), we're doing everything we possibly can."
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PABLO PUSHED, GILLILAND PARKED: Juan Pablo Montoya was again contending for a top-10 finish, and like a week earlier in Atlanta got knocked out of the race. This time, it didn't seem like an accident.
Montoya's No. 42 Dodge was damaged beyond repair when he slammed into the wall after David Gilliland plowed into the rear end of Montoya's car on lap 264 of the 334-lap race -- the caution that got Jeff Gordon back on the lead lap.
"It's very simple. I bumped him earlier when he almost put me in the wall," said Montoya, who was running 10th at the time of the crash. "Then he just came out of the corner and just wrecked me. It's just frustrating."
Gilliland insisted that the accident occurred when he "misjudged" trying to let Montoya get by him out of the second turn onto the backstretch.
"It's a shame that it happened. I hate that Juan's got a tore-up race car," Gilliland said. "My spotter said I was clear and I slid up in front of him and he ran in the back of me and then going down into turn one and two it was the same thing. Then I went up the track to let him go and just kind of misjudged my run coming down back across the track. I was gonna let him go."
NASCAR apparently thought otherwise, though, parking Gilliland's car for the rest of the race.
During the ensuring caution, Gilliland was in his pit stall and it was initially announced that he had incurred a five-lap penalty for aggressive driving. But that was amended and the No. 38 Ford was done for the day.
Gilliland finished 42nd, and Montoya 43rd.
At Atlanta, Montoya was clipped on pit road during a late caution period. The Colombian got back on the track, only to be taken out in a five-car crash with 22 laps to go and finished 40th.
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SWEEPS AND REPEATS: Carl Edwards' victory in the Dickies 500 made him the first driver to sweep both Cup races at Texas in the same year, following his victory in April.
It also made for a clean sweep in all three NASCAR series at Texas in 2008. Kyle Busch won both Nationwide events at Texas, and Ron Hornaday Jr. won both NASCAR Truck races.
The win by Edwards, the first three-time Cup winner at Texas, also extended another interesting streak.
Since Texas got a fall race three years ago, the Dickies 500 winner has always been the same driver that won the previous week at Atlanta, another 1 1/2-mile track owned by Bruton Smith. Edwards has now pulled off the Atlanta-Texas two-step twice, this first coming in 2005. The others who did it were Tony Stewart (2006) and Jimmie Johnson (2007).
Next year, the two races won't be back-to-back. The date of Atlanta's race is now before the 10-race Cup chase.
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SMALLEST CROWD STILL A BIG ONE: The estimated crowd of 171,000 was the smallest for the 16 Sprint Cup races at Texas Motor Speedway.
Despite the empty seats, there are only three other NASCAR tracks that could even accommodate a crowd that large: Indianapolis, Daytona and Charlotte.
"It may not be the largest crowd we have ever had here, but I couldn't be prouder of it," track president Eddie Gossage said. "Considering the state of the economy, we had a tremendous crowd and all the credit gores to the loyalty and support of our NASCAR fans."
The crowd was down about 12,500 from the fall race last November, and about 19,000 down from April.
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SPARKPLUGS: Brad Keselowski, making his first Cup start for the Hendrick team, finished 19th. ... Cars owned by Jack Roush have won seven of the 16 Cup races at Texas. All five of his cars finished in the top 11 on Sunday. ... In the drivers' meeting Sunday afternoon, before even talking about the race, NASCAR event director David Hoots reminded everyone in the room about the upcoming presidential election and told them to make sure to vote Tuesday. ... Jeff Burton, Jeff Gordon, Bobby Labonte and Mark Martin are the only drivers who have taken part in all 16 Cup races at Texas Motor Speedway, which opened in 1997.
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