The crew of Robby Gordon’s #31 Cingular Wireless Chevy was the Round 7 winner of the McDonald’s Drive-Thru Pit Championship fueled by POWERade during Sunday’s (March 30) NASCAR Winston Cup race – Samsung/RadioShack 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. Gordon’s team, owned by Richard Childress Racing, was declared the winner and the recipient of the $20,000 first prize money for spending the least amount of time (202 seconds) on pit road. Coming in second was another Richard Childress Racing entry – the #30 crew of Jeff Green’s AOL Chevy. Green’s car had a total time of 234 seconds on pit road. The win lifted Gordon’s team into third place in the season point standings for the McDonald’s Drive-Thru Pit Championship fueled by POWERade. During each 2003 NASCAR Winston Cup points event, the participating team whose car spends the least amount of aggregate time off the race track will be named the weekly winner provided the team’s driver takes the green flag at the beginning of the event and the checkered flag at the conclusion of the event. A timing line at the entrance and exit of pit road triggers the car’s transponder and records the total time spent off the race track. The team that records the most standing points during the season will receive a $200,000 bonus at the end of the year. The point distribution per race is: 43 points for first place, descending in increments of one. In order to obtain points at each race, a team must take the opening green flag and the closing checkered flag. The McDonald’s Drive-Thru Pit Championship fueled by POWERade is the largest monetary contingency program in NASCAR history and the first to reward pit crews for performance at each race. Top 10 Pit Crews For Participating Teams At Texas: 1. Robby Gordon, 202 seconds 2. Jeff Green, 234 3. Dale Earnhardt Jr.,. 238 4. John Andretti, 251 5. Jamie McMurray, 262 6. Jerry Nadeau, 270 7. Michael Waltrip, 309 8. Todd Bodine, 342 9. Jack Sprague, 372 10. Kurt Busch, 379 (DMF Communications PR)(4-2-2003)
