Gordon back in the hunt after hard week at Lowe's

DOVER, Del. -- As far as Jeff Gordon is concerned, last week's Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway didn't happen. He didn't finish 30th. He didn't run terrible and lose seven laps.

No, it didn't happen. And even if it did, it doesn't matter.

"I'm really good at blocking out what happened last week," Gordon said. "And the team is, as well. We're not going to worry too much about it."

	The No. 24 finished 30th last weekend in the Coca-Cola 600. Credit: Autostock

Gordon rebounded, sort of, in Friday's qualifying for the MBNA 400 at Dover International Speedway. After posting the 21st-fastest practice speed, Gordon qualified the No. 24 Chevrolet in the 13th position for Sunday's race.

"I would like to have more time on the track," Gordon said after time trials. "We did some race runs this morning. We made the right adjustments. The car had been tight all day. It was good; just not free enough."

That's quite a contrast to last week, where Gordon's car started out loose -- way loose. And since most of the first half of the race was run under green, Gordon and crew chief Robbie Loomis couldn't get it adjusted.

And that's all that went wrong, Gordon said.

"For the most part, we were just too loose, and we went green-flag runs for long at the beginning that we just didn't have the ability and time to really work on the car to make it better," Gordon said. "When we did, we got it better."

Gordon's team has a different car at Dover this weekend, but last week's car isn't going to the crusher.

"That's the car we won California with, so it's not a throwaway," Gordon said. "I don't think it was the car. We just missed. It happens. It happened to Junior this year as well."

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Dale Earnhardt Jr. had a terrible day at Las Vegas, finishing 35th after turning the race into an extended test session. Junior bounced back the following week to win at Atlanta.

Gordon said that could happen to his team.

"You don't get down on yourself," Gordon said. "You look back at all the great runs you've had and try to make sure you get back on track, and Dover's a great place to do that. ... I'm very confident we can come in here and run good, leave here and continue to run good."

What seemed odd to some about Charlotte was Jimmie Johnson's dominating performance en route to the victory. Johnson and Gordon, by the way, are teammates at Hendrick Motorsports.

Their cars come out of the same shop, so it would seem odd that one car would lap the other seven times.

"You have to understand how setups work," Gordon said. "And if you don't understand that, it's easy to say, 'Well, they ought to be identical every time.' ... Based on the way my car was reacting, we put the setup we thought we should. We also felt like the track would tighten up. I don't think we had any idea we'd be that far behind at the beginning."

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The teammates don't often use similar setups, Gordon said.

"He drives a lot different, uses a lot more brake," Gordon said. "We share notes, but we have to be careful with just putting the same setups. His setup was actually looser than mine in some ways and tighter than mine in others."

And last Sunday, it was a lot worse. But it's time to shake it off and move on.

"It's easy," Gordon said. "We've had so many good (weekends) this year that we're riding on that. Our race team is strong. We missed. If anything, it just makes you pay attention to the details and make sure we analyze every single thing on the car before that race on Sunday.

"Whether there were some distractions or whether we just made some mistakes, we've got to make sure they don't happen in the future."