Gordon happy with team's progress, hoping for first win of 2008
By SceneDaily Staff
Saturday, June 07, 2008
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LONG POND, Pa. – When Jeff Gordon and his Hendrick Motorsports team tested at Pocono Raceway recently, they were not even close to being the best on the track.
So they borrowed the setup from teammate Jimmie Johnson and began working from there.
That's an unusual move for the Hendrick team. Certainly the group shares technology and information openly, but Gordon traditionally has been unable to drive a car with Johnson's setup in it. With the new car, though, the gap between what drivers want seems to be lessened and Gordon found himself quickly adapting and adjusting from that baseline.
That's the latest step for Gordon as he and his team try to gain speed in NASCAR's new model, which was used in only 16 races last season and is appearing on all tracks this season. It would be a stretch to say that Gordon is having a bad season - the driver is sixth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings and riding a streak of four consecutive top-10 finishes.
So while he hasn't won a race and hasn't been a factor contending for the top spot most weeks, he has kept his team solidly in contention to make the Chase For The NASCAR Sprint Cup. That makes it hard for him to question his season to date.
"I think we've got the best team out there, I really do," Gordon said Friday at Pocono Raceway. "I don't think we've gotten the most out of the cars and I put myself in that category when I say ... it's not just the guys on this team or Hendrick Motorsports, it's all of us. We're working hard to make those gains. It's hard for me to give us a bad grade because of where we are at in points and because of how good our team is, so I give us a 'B', 'B-plus'.
"Based on sometimes how we've performed on the track you would think it would be easier to grade us lower than that, but to have four straight top 10s and three straight top fives, that's something I'm pretty proud of."
Still, Gordon says his team is not as close to winning as he feels like it needs to be. He thinks he should perform well at the upcoming road-course race at Infineon Raceway and that his team could win based on how a race plays out. He is still looking for more from this car, though.
"There's no doubt we can win, we can win everywhere," he said. "If you just base it off sheer speed, we still need to gain and we feel like we've got until September to make all those gains and be in the Chase and start the Chase off ... solid and have something for those guys."
While he wants to make this car work for him and says that the team needs to find a little more speed, Gordon points out that there's just not that much difference in terms of speed from team to team right now. With this new car, it could just "be something small that makes up that bit of time."
So he doesn't seem overly concerned. The four-time Cup champion knows how to build a competitive effort.
One of the keys to that is having a team that is confident as well as capable. So when Gordon analyzes his team, he sees a lot that is working well.
He just needs a little more to move into the elite tier of competitive groups this season.
"We're in the Chase but we need to be more competitive," he said. "I feel like we do have some work to do. We're not going to to deny that. I feel like we're one of the best organizations out there and we can make those gains. Our performance has been building our confidence that we're not that far off, that we just need to just keep working.
"We've got an incredible team, pit crew, all those things are right there. I think [crew chief] Steve Letarte's doing an awesome job calling the races and communicating with me. We need to find a little bit of speed. We're happy to be where we're at in the points, but we're not happy we haven't been leading more laps or putting ourselves in position to win more races."
- Mentioned Drivers:
- Jeff Gordon
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