Insider's View: Robby Gordon

BROOKLYN, Mich. -- I have a little saying, "Success breeds success."

Winning sometimes cures everything and when you get that momentum rolling and the morale on the team built up, they start working even harder to massage on every little part and fine-tune the car even more.

Even though it seems like our win at Sonoma started us on a roll at Richard Childress Racing that's still continuing, the reasons for that are a little deeper than simply winning a couple races.

	Gordon says to be on top in the Winston Cup Series means there's little time for rest. Credit: Autostock

We've got a great group of guys on our Cingular Wireless Chevrolets and there are a lot of things that have come into play to enable us to run in the top 10 in virtually every race since Sonoma.

I think what you have to look at a little, is that when we started out this season we had an entirely new Monte Carlo body style to work with, while the Fords and Dodges were the same as they had been in previous years. That gave us a challenge right off the bat to get our bodies where they needed to be.

From the start we had really good front downforce, but we didn't have the rear downforce we needed to match that. The cars have been really loose up until we fixed that problem, and it's only been relatively recently that we've got that corrected.

Through trial and error, we've made a couple six-tenths of a second jumps in lap times, which is considerable. At Texas, we weren't that good and we finally figured out what it takes for our car to go.

We had a little bit of bad luck at Daytona and finished 40th, and struggled a little bit at Pocono where we finished 18th. Without that we'd really, really be in good shape -- we've had top-10s in every other race since we won at Infineon Raceway in June.

ROBBY GORDON  •  Driver Page  •  2003 Season Stats  •  Video Highlights  •  Driver vs. Driver

I think it was at Chicago that we really started to come back around on the oval tracks, and we had a really good car at Indy, as well. Obviously, you can see that we've continued to do fairly well here at Michigan this weekend and that has got everyone at RCR pretty well excited.

The reasons for that involve every element at our race team, and you just can't underestimate the way the team at Richard Childress Racing uplifts the performance for everyone. The group of engineers that was brought aboard at the beginning of the year has made a difference.

We started this season with more engineering-based programs. My crew chief Kevin Hamlin has worked really well with those guys, as I have and I honestly think that's where our performance is coming from, little by little.

Hamlin brings a key element into that mix in that he has a tremendous amount of race experience -- the knowledge of what to do at the racetrack that you really can't replace.

Our head engineer, Chris Andrews, does a lot of research for Kevin and in some cases finds a different way to skin the cat, you might say, or other ways to adjust the car that the computer simulations show him.

The whole group, with Todd Berrier going over to become Kevin Harvick's crew chief and Hamlin and Gil Martin, who fills a number of different roles, have really worked well together and have pulled us all forward.

Our season has come and gone a little bit, but I said at the beginning of the year that a top-10 finish in the points was our goal and I still think it's very realistic. If you look at our past five weeks, we've been consistent week in and week out.

The guys are really enthusiastic and willing to go the extra mile to make sure that we have race cars that not only are well put together but that also look good and that are well-organized.

VIDEO CLIPS Robby holds off Scott Pruett and Dale Earnhardt Jr. at The Glen Play video Robby wins the battle of the Gordons in the final laps at Infineon Play video

They're putting their heart and soul into this every day and that's where I think you're really seeing our team starting to come together.

Sure, I'm part of that, and making adjustments is always part of what we all have to do. I think the biggest thing that I've done is keeping the car on the racetrack and not made too many driving mistakes.

Of course, I still make mistakes at times but I think I have a better understanding in general of what's going on about some of the intricacies of the game. I have a better idea of what the pit windows are and we've been able to communicate that better.

I've learned how to convey to the guys what the car's doing, what it needs and how to adjust it to make us more able to climb the ladder and continue to be a contender.

Trust me; in Winston Cup racing you've got to drive at 11/10ths all day long, every day. Without question, this is the most competitive sport I've ever been involved in.

You've got to be on your game all day long to compete here, and it's not just one person -- it's a whole race team. The chemistry and those types of things are what our group has done, effectively.

I say this every once in a while and sometimes it's kind of jokingly -- but I really believe it. As competitive as we are with each other, Kevin Harvick and myself help the teams to climb the ladder because we push each other so hard.

He wants to outperform us and I want to better them -- simple as that.