NASCAR: Gordon 'embarrassing' on restarts in return

Four-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Jeff Gordon admitted to being embarrassed at his performance on restarts in the Brickyard 400, his first race back to in place of Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Gordon came out of retirement to rejoin Hendrick Motorsports while Earnhardt is sidelined while recovering from concussion-like symptoms. Set to race again this weekend at Pocono at least, Gordon moved from 21st to finish 13th at Indianapolis Motor Speedway but said he lost out badly at restarts in a race with seven caution periods.

"I got my butt kicked on those restarts," Gordon said. "It was embarrassing.

"While I will fill in for Dale Jr – and I hope he's doing good – I needed a fill-in on restarts. It was pretty bad.

"Other than that, I thought it went really well. It took us a little while to get the balance right and the adjustments came to us, [crew chief Greg Ives] made an awesome pit call to come in early one time.

"And he called it right as I was going into Turn 4 and that made up a lot of spots for us, because we had a fast racecar. We just couldn't get the track position. It was pretty tough to pass. But, I'm going to need some practice on restarts for Pocono anyway.

"On one hand I'm relieved that this is over and on the other hand I would have liked it to have gone a little bit better."

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Originally on Autosport.com