JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED FOURTH

TELL US ABOUT YOUR EVENING:

“Well I know it’s not a win for our Drive To End Hunger Chevrolet, but we have not made it to the end here in quite a while so I think it just shows what this No. 24 team is capable of when we are at the end. We made a great effort at it. Congrats to (Dale Earnhardt) Junior the world is right, right now. Dale, Jr. just won the Daytona 500 to kick off 2014 that is a sign that the NASCAR season is going to be a good one. I had some great pushes from Jimmie Johnson and some other guys out there. That is what it takes if you are going to either win it or be in contention to win it. We had some good things go our way today, pit stops, everything. The whole team just did an awesome job all winter long and down here all week.”

THREE HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS CARS IN THE TOP FIVE, OBVIOUSLY YOU WANTED TO WIN, BUT TELL US HOW THE FINAL LAPS UNFOLDED:

“Oh my God, I am so excited for Hendrick Motorsports right now. Congratulations to Dale, that is so cool and I know how excited his fans are. Rick Hendrick, another Daytona 500 victory. Three Hendrick cars in the top five is spectacular. You know, I don’t know what happened when the rain went away and the track dried, but everybody’s brains just flipped over to this is a shootout. It was unbelievable the kind of racing there was. Two and three wide, bump drafting and just craziness. There for a while we didn’t have great track position and I was just hanging on and trying not to wreck and seeing other guys doing the same thing.

“We got through some wrecks and then we started having some things going our way. We got good pushes, good lines and my spotter Eddie did a great job. Alan and this team just did an amazing job and gave me a great car at the end of the show.”

IN RETROSPECT, WAS THERE ANYTHING YOU COULD HAVE DONE THAT LAST LAP?

“No, I gave Junior a great push when we took the green so we got a good start. The 99 got to my bumper and we got kind of going, but he got sucked-off of me or whatever happened, and I was just a sitting duck at that point. I saw Jimmie Johnson go three-wide behind me and my lane started going backwards. But he got to me and gave me a huge shove and the 11 pulled down in front of me and we just went. At that point I am thinking maybe we can get to Junior, but when I got to third I thought anything in the top three at that point without a wrecked car would be a great finish. We wanted to win and we had a car that could but we are also excited to see Junior win.”

Learn about the new Jeff Gordon #Team24 Fan Club at fanclub.jeffgordon.com.