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He's now in sixth place, a hopeless 616 points behind. Worse, the whispers have started, the fingers have begun to be pointed. Fans, expecting a triumphant run to another championship, have tied to blame someone, anyone.
And who is the first person who gets blamed? The crew chief. In this case, it's Robbie Loomis.
But hold on, Gordon says. Don't blame Loomis.
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"Robbie's a great crew chief," Gordon said. "He and I work very well together. I don't want anybody else as my crew chief. When things are going good, it's funny how certain people get the credit. When things are going bad, and crew chiefs know this, drivers usually go through one or two crew chiefs before the driver goes.
"They all make jokes about, 'Well, I'm one of the first things to go.'"
But Loomis isn't going anywhere.
"We certainly think about that from this side," Gordon said. "That's rumor. That's other speculation. That certainly doesn't have anything to do with what happens inside the team."
So what has happened? How can Gordon go from contending for a title to falling out of contention? It's not an easy answer, but the facts do speak for themselves, sort of.
Since Chicago, Gordon has only one other top-five finish, and that was last week at Dover. His other finishes have been quite un-Gordon-like: 36th at Pocono, 33rd at Watkins Glen, 32nd at Darlington, 30th at Michigan, 28th at Bristol, 24th at New Hampshire.
"I'd be lying to you if I told you it wasn't frustrating," Loomis said. "We're in a performance business. That's the bottom line. What people see, especially outside people, is what is the bottom line. That's what you're graded on. That's what I'm graded on as a crew chief, that's what Jeff's graded on as a driver and that's what we're graded on as a team."
Take a step back, however, and look at those finishes. Gordon was taken out in a crash at Pocono; he ran out of fuel while running third at Watkins Glen; he got caught up in a multi-car crash at Darlington; he fell a lap down early because of electrical problems and could never make it up at Michigan; he was crashed by a lapped car at Bristol; and mis-timed strategy doomed his effort at New Hampshire.
And look a little deeper: Gordon led the most laps at the first New Hampshire race, Bristol and Richmond.
"I've been really happy with the performance, but very disappointed at the same time with the results," Gordon said. "We've been on a bad string here that we can't be satisfied with, and we're not going to be until we get back to winning races."
Gordon pointed to end-of-race scenarios, some of which have been the team's fault, some of which have been no one's fault. Sometimes, stuff just happens.
"We've led a lot of laps this year, and we've shown that we're capable of finishing in the top five week in and week out and winning races," Gordon said. "We just haven't done it."
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| Robbie Loomis Credit: Autostock |
Loomis, for his part, said he is feeling the pressure. You can't have a job like his and not feel it.
"Oh, yeah, definitely, especially being fortunate to work with a guy with the caliber and talent of Jeff Gordon," Loomis said. "The expectations are extremely high from the sponsors, they're extremely high, even more so, from the fans. You definitely feel the pressure."
It all goes back to results. Loomis knows he and Gordon "have to get the bottom line." But Loomis also knows he's in a solid organization that won't be quick to pull the trigger. Team owner Rick Hendrick has been around the block and understands what is going on with the 24 bunch.
"He knows how long he can be patient and how long he can't be," Loomis said. "We're looking forward to next year. We sat down and talked a couple weeks, and we know we've got to keep building things and make it as strong as we can, so when we come out next year, we can do everything in our sight to get that fifth championship for Jeff."
Until then, Loomis and Gordon will keep fighting.
"I've never blamed anybody, including myself, for wanting to win and pushing the limits trying to do that," Gordon said.
He cited Watkins Glen and the second New Hampshire races as examples. At the Glen, Gordon was punted out of the lead in the first turn and raced like crazy the rest of the way to get back to the front. He was turning some incredible lap times, faster than anyone expected. And that burned up too much gas, and he ran out on the final corner and got hit by Kevin Harvick a few yards from the finish line.
At NHIS, Gordon was having a "great comeback" after contact from Michael Waltrip, but the crew was too conservative and didn't get enough gas in the car.
"That's just because we want to win," Gordon said. "We want to get everything we can out of it. We're doing a little bit too much right now. We need to be a little bit more on the conservative side."
Don't expect big changes, however.
"You'll go out some Sundays and call a race, and by the way the cautions fall or by the way the race works out -- two or three guys might break or have trouble -- and you win the race," Loomis said. "It's very easy to go back home thinking, 'Man, I'm the smartest guy out there today.' ... The opposite side of that is, there are days when you might call a good race, but the cautions simply don't fall your way or (Tony) Stewart or (Ryan) Newman were competitive and it simply wasn't your day. You can't beat yourself up to the point of saying, 'I wasn't that smart last week and got this dumb this week.
"It hasn't been pleasant at all the last two months of not getting the bottom line. However, if you can remove yourself from being down in the trenches, there are a whole lot of positives in the things we've been doing."
Loomis recently met with crew members from the No. 24 team to talk about the positives and try to keep them focused. Just as it's easy to keep positive momentum when things are going well, it's easy to get down when things are going poorly.
But Loomis has learned from Richard Petty about how to handle things. Petty was the king of being consistent, in good times and bad. When things are going well, they'll change. When things are going bad, they'll change.
"Things like that give me the ability to remain pretty calm through the eye of the storm," Loomis said, "and just work through it."
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