Gordon confident of team's preparation entering Chicago race weekend
By SceneDaily Staff
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
- TEXT SIZE: Increase Text Size Decrease Text Size Reset Text Size
- No Comments. Leave a Comment
- Digg This
- Add to Del.icio.us
- RSS Feeds
Chris Graythen / Getty Images
Latest Headlines
- Petty CEO declines comment on merger report
- Richard Childress receives 2008 NASCAR Home Depot Humanitarian Award
- NASCAR photographer T. Taylor Warren recipient of 2008 Myers Brothers Award
- Dale Earnhardt Jr. wins Most Popular Driver Award for sixth consecutive season
- Bob Bahre wins 2008 Buddy Shuman Award
Jeff Gordon and his Hendrick Motorsports team haven't had a smooth run through the series of track debuts for NASCAR's new car this season.
He's run exceptionally well in some of the races at the 1.5-mile and 2-mile ovals and struggled in others. He finished third at California Speedway then led laps at Las Vegas Motor Speedway before a severe crash halted that effort. He finished fifth at Atlanta but then was completely lost in terms of the setup at Texas Motor Speedway. He was 18th at Michigan.
So which version of his team will show up this weekend when the car makes its first NASCAR Sprint Cup appearance at 1.5-mile Chicagoland Speedway? The four-time Cup champion is trying to make sure it's the one that works out well for the group. To that end, the team plans to test at Kentucky Speedway this week to prepare for the event.
“I still don’t feel like we’ve really figured out what we need to be battling for wins and leading laps, but we’re working really hard on that,” Gordon said. "In terms of sheer speed, we still need to gain. But we feel like we have until September to make all those gains."
Right now, he's trying to lock up his position in the Chase For The NASCAR Sprint Cup. Gordon is sixth in the standings and seems securely in the 12-driver field with eight races to go before the field is set. But he's not counting on anything yet.
“We need to secure a spot in the Chase and then start off solid," Gordon said. "We have a strong team – one that’s capable of winning races anywhere, one that’s capable of winning a championship.”
Now, he's hoping he can win at Chicagoland in Saturday night's Lifelock.com 400. Gordon has one win and five top-10 finishes in seven races at the track.
As he prepares to race there once more, though, he's trying to glean as much as he can from the season's previous races in the new model car being used in every race this year. That could help put his team in victory lane for the first time this season.
"I thought we started out the year well with good runs at California, Las Vegas and Atlanta,” Gordon said. “Texas, though, was probably the low point of the season for us. We ran terrible, and I lost control of the car. When you go through those types of races, you look back at it and try to figure out how we could have improved and where we are missing something.
“Everybody's pretty tightly matched. Sometimes it might look like you're way off, but it could be something that's small that makes a big
difference."
- Mentioned Drivers:
- Jeff Gordon
No Comments
Be the first to comment on "Gordon confident of team's preparation entering Chicago race weekend". Login or sign up for a free account below to post your comment