Robby Gordon (31) finished in the top-five for the first time since last August. Credit: Autostock
By Lee Montgomery, Turner Sports Interactive
March 22, 2004
10:43 AM EST (1543 GMT)
DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Robby Gordon has finished in the top five before. With three victories in his Nextel Cup career, he's not a stranger to running up front.
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A strong fourth-place finish in Sunday's Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 at Darlington Raceway was Gordon's 10th career top-five finish.
But even Gordon realizes a great run every now and then isn't acceptable. He needs to back it up.
"We can't just stop with one good run," Gordon said. "We've got to continue to run good and climb ourselves up in the points."
Consistency has been one of the struggles with Gordon and his No. 31 Richard Childress Racing team. In 139 career races, Gordon has never posted back-to-back top-five finishes. He came close last year, wrapping a pair of sixths around his victory at Watkins Glen.
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| Gordon: "We can't just stop with one good run." |
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Getting a top-five next week will be tough, for the Nextel Cup Series heads to demanding Bristol Motor Speedway. Gordon, though, is optimistic. Darlington is a tough place, too, and he ran well at the 1.366-mile track.
Sunday's run was also a bit of a boost for the team, which came into the race 32nd in points. Gordon crashed out of the first two events, and then was 30th at Las Vegas and 17th at Atlanta.
"We dug ourselves a big hole," Gordon said. "This will pop us out a little bit, and hopefully we can continue to move forward week after week."
Gordon has a new crew chief this year in Chris Andrews and a new car chief in Todd Osborne. But most of the team members have been around RCR for some time, and even Andrews was part of Gordon's team last year as an engineer.
"Most of these guys on this team have won races," Gordon said. "(This finish) just builds a little momentum. Big compliment to the guys on pit lane. Those guys have worked really hard all winter, and it showed today."
Adjustments made to Gordon's car showed Sunday, too. In Saturday's practice, Gordon said he was so tight after he got off the gas in the corners, he didn't pick it back up again until he was on the backstretch.
 | VIDEO CLIPS | |  | Post-race interviews: B. Labonte, Ryan Newman
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But after conferring with Gordon's Busch Series team -- he finished seventh in Saturday's Diamond Hill Plywood 200 -- Gordon and his Cup team made a lot of changes to the No. 31 Chevrolet.
Evidently, they worked.
"It was that tight (Saturday)," Gordon said. "The Cup guys talked to the Busch guys, and we took a little half and half and put them together and got a top-five finish. I'm real happy with that."
Gordon was sitting in third on the final restart but despite constant encouragement from his spotter to be smooth, lost one spot to a hard-charging Ryan Newman.
"These tires, if you overdrive them and are hard on them, then they go away really bad," Gordon said. "We just tried to manage our tires. Unfortunately, we didn't have a car good enough for a short sprint at the end.
"Maybe if we'd have gotten track position, we'd have been good enough, but it wasn't good enough from where we were sitting."
Gordon said his car was too loose for a short run, which he got in a four-lap sprint to the checkered flag.
"I think I turned the steering wheel more to the right than I did to the left," Gordon said. "We were just way too loose for the short run. We were really good on long runs.
"Everybody else kept loose toward the end (of a run), and we were really good at the end. We freed the car, and we never got it tightened up again later."
Still, a fourth-place finish was a good showing, easily the best of the year. Now, can he do it again?
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