Insider's View: R. Gordon

HAMPTON, Ga. -- Over the next three weeks coming up on the Winston Cup schedule we have some interesting tracks because they don't resemble each other whatsoever.

We're three races into the championship right now and we're 14th in the standings. I want to say that's about 20 places better than we were last year at this point, so that's a big jump.

	Robby Gordon's No. 31 Chevrolet finished 17th at Atlanta. Credit: Autostock

If we can't win the race and we have to accept a 20th-place finish, that's better than throwing the whole race away like I did last year due to overdriving the car and taking unnecessary chances. That's what we're trying to do this year.

This stretch coming up will be a test for a lot of things.

First, we have Darlington, which is probably our hardest race, maybe only second to Rockingham.

I don't know, maybe Rockingham is second to Darlington as far as how far the tires fall off and the amount of grip you have between old tires and new tires.

At Darlington, you also have to use a line on the track that we normally don't race. I mean, how often do you go out and run right up against the wall in Turns 1 and 2? It's completely different than what the norm is.

From Darlington we go to Bristol the next weekend. It's a down and dirty bullring. It's short track racing with high banks -- and believe it or not I've really begun to like Bristol a lot.

It's one of my favorite tracks, actually. Every time I leave Bristol it seems like there's almost a pit brawl going on. But still, you're going, "God, I can't wait to go back" or "Damn, that pissed me off -- but we're gonna win the next time!"

It's just so much fun to bullring race at a place like Bristol.

After that we go to Texas, a fast mile-and-a-half that I call an intermediate track but you almost have to call a superspeedway. It's one of our fastest tracks and it wasn't kind at all to me last year.

So it's going to be real important for (crew chief Kevin) Hamlin and myself to communicate and make adjustments on the fly because there's not really a lot that you can take from one of those tracks to the next, as far as information.

We'll probably pull our information from Las Vegas and Atlanta for Texas. Bristol is our first time on a short track this year and again it's going to be with the new Monte Carlo body. And then there's Darlington.

I think at Darlington last year we had a really good race car but I got into the wall about four times. I never really wrecked -- I just leaned against the wall.

So they're making some modifications to the car -- putting some wood into the doors and stuff like that -- so that if I do get into the wall it doesn't knock the toe out of the car.

It's pretty hard to adjust to going to these different tracks from week to week -- especially a place like Darlington that you have to drive so differently. You have to drive it so reserved.

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You can't hot rod Darlington at all. Well, you can for one or two laps but the tires are so far gone that you really have to finesse Darlington, like rolling onto the throttle really nice and slow. You really have to take care of your tires.

It seems like it's been that way for years. For us, I'm still fairly new at that, but I'm catching on at understanding what it takes to run Darlington and what it takes to run it successfully.

Getting on the same page with your crew chief is critical to getting through this stretch of races, as much as it is at any point in the season.

Learning how Kevin and I can best communicate is an ongoing process. We were starting to get pretty hooked up at the end of last year and now we have a new body to re-understand (but) at least Kevin is finding out what I like as a driver, and how loose I can drive the car and be comfortable.

He is getting tuned into what it means when I say, "I'm tight" in one tone, compared to when I say, "I'M TIGHT!" That's five turns of wedge compared to one turn, and that is what they're talking about when they talk about the chemistry between a driver and a crew chief.

He understands my voice and what it means in terms of what I'm saying about the race car and the adjustments that we're making on it.

Developing this kind of relationship is a critical thing when you look at the success you expect to have racing in this series.

I think that you look at the guys that are coming into the sport new -- guys like Jimmie Johnson and Kurt Busch -- and they're doing such a good job. These guys have come in and picked up the sport really well.

On the other side it takes a lot to understand what it takes to race for a championship. Those guys finished, what, third and fifth in the championship last year? They did an amazingly impressive job.

	Credit: Autostock

For me, I still have to learn stock cars. I have been doing it long enough now that I really understand the cars. I just have to figure out what I like -- what shock or what spring I like when we come to these certain tracks.

It would have been nice if we could've come back with the same package, but now to come back with a totally different package (2003 Chevrolet), I'm having to learn it all over again.

Every time we race together or test together, Kevin and I get better as far as communicating and exchanging ideas. So I think the most important thing is the trust factor, back and forth.

We've been building that week in and week out and it's been going pretty good. We've got pretty much a completely new group of guys on the road crew on the Cingular car.

I have a lot of faith in the guys that are working on my car and they're doing a great job. The guys last year did a great job so it's just new people again and, knock on wood, I can't remember any real mechanical failures that we've had in a long time. That helps build confidence as well.

After this three-race stretch is over I hope we can look back and say, one, it was a lot of fun; two, we learned a lot; and three, that hey, we won a race here and we won a race there -- and we're top-10 inside the championship.