The 17th time was the charm for Jeff Gordon.
On Sunday, the 4-time Sprint Cup Series champion finally got one that has long gotten away and in doing so snapped a Texas-sized slump.
Gordon held off Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson to win the Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. It snapped a 47-race winless streak dating back to the 2007 season.
Last year marked the first time since Gordon's rookie season in 1993 that he did not win a Sprint Cup Series event.
"It feels like the very first time I've ever won," Gordon said. "It's been a long streak. It's been a lot of ups and downs and tough times. . . . I knew we were going to get one eventually. I feel like we had some missed opportunities last season, even as we didn't have a great year. But there was still times we could have won. And so that just keeps you driving and driving hard and pushing forward."
Gordon, who came into the event on top of the standings, left Texas with a 162 point lead over Johnson, who jumped from fourth to second place.
It was the 82nd career win for Gordon but the his first in 17 starts at Texas Motor Speedway Gordon has now won on every track on the Sprint Cup Series schedule except for Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Despite the win, Gordon still wasn't ready to put Texas on his favorite's list of tracks.
"I would say 90 percent of the tracks we go to I've got pretty good idea what I need in the car and what I need to do as a driver to get around that track and be fast," Gordon said. "And I think that's what's helped contribute to our success. . . . And I'm telling you at Texas I'm just lost. This is just one of the toughest racetracks out there. The transitions getting into the corner, off the corner are unlike any other. Yet the corners are extremely fast. There's some pretty good bumps out there. I believe for me personally, as well as a lot of other guys who will probably back it up, this is the most challenging mile-and-a-half track that we go to."
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