Gordon crew pockets win in Atlanta.

The #31 pit crew of Robby Gordon squeaked by Dale Earnhardt Jr's line-up to capture the McDonald's Drive-Thru Pit Championship fuelled by POWERade in Sunday's 500-mile Nextel Cup race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

While Gordon's crew grabbed the $20,000 weekly prize, former champion Tony Stewart's team moved into first place overall with 154 points on the season, taking over from Elliott Sadler. Kurt Busch's crew now stands second, one point behind at 153. Earnhardt's crew, the reigning McDonald's/POWERade champion, is third with 148 points, while Sadler's crew dropped to fourth with 143.

Though Earnhardt's #8 Chevrolet eventually found its way to winner's circle in Atlanta, it was Gordon's Cingular Wireless Chevy that spent the least amount of time on pit-road. Gordon's accumulated pit time of 281.691secs was just over a second quicker than Earnhardt's 282.864secs. Jeff Burton's Ford was third at 284.833secs.

"The guys work hard at the shop and at the track," said Chris Andrews, crew chief for the #31 Cingular Wireless Chevrolet, "Between working on cars, spending time in the gym and at pit-stop practice, they've managed to bang out 13 to 14-second, and sometimes even twelve-second stops every weekend.

"We made seven stops Sunday and gained track position every time we came down pit-lane. Our over-the-wall crew is a competitive group of guys, and I don't think this will be the last time I will be asked to comment about their performance this year for the McDonald's/POWERade championship."

Gordon's crew consists of front-tyre team Ira-Jo Hussey and Kevin Nervegna, Timmy Ladyga and Matt Kreuter on the rear tyres, gasman Ron Liddell, jackman Mike Moore and Coy Hedrick on the catch can.