Jeff Gordon said his team has struggled in final practice before and he's confident the team will get it together. Credit: Autostock

Notebook: Gordon not pleased with car

FONTANA, Calif. -- Jeff Gordon has been as close to perfection as a driver can be at California Speedway.

In eight previous races at the two-mile oval, the three-time winner has completed all but two of the 4,000 miles and has led 412 laps. In fact, Gordon has never finished worse than 16th at Fontana and was involved in the two closest finishes, winning one and finishing second in the other.

JEFF GORDON •   Driver Page •   Article Archive •   Superstore: Jeff Gordon gear! •   Join Jeff's Fan Club!

However, he wasn't happy with his car after Saturday's two practices.

"Happy Hour was not happy," Gordon said. "We weren't as good as we need to be. We went through this same thing the last time we were here.

"We really weren't that good in practice but we were great when they dropped the green flag. I'm hoping for the same thing (Sunday)."

TARGET HOUSE 300 Victory Lane Greg Biffle celebrates his season sweep at California Speedway Top Finishers Mears, McMurray, Truex Jr. on their Target House 300 finishes Final Laps Late cautions set up a duel to the checkers between Biffle and Mears End of the Road Sterling Marlin drops an engine at the midway point of the race •   Unofficial Results •   Unofficial Standings

Sterling Marlin's No. 1 Dodge made it exactly halfway through Saturday's Busch Series Target House 300 before it expired with engine problems.

"It blew up, just blew up," Marlin said.

Tina Gordon's No. 39 Ford was flagged after 40 laps for being too slow, but she said speed might have been the least of her troubles.

"It just had a bad oil leak from the beginning," she said. "I felt a vibration on pit road. I felt something loose in the transmission."

Busch Series veteran David Green will be making his first Nextel Cup appearance of the season next weekend at Richmond, but he was more nervous about a recent trip to the pitcher's mound at Edison Field, home of the California Angels, where he hrew out the first pitch.

"Everyone thinks it's going to be easy," Green said. "The toughest part was to make sure I got that ball across the plate."

A trip to California Speedway is a homecoming of sorts for Jimmie Johnson, who grew up in the San Diego area. But that also creates more trouble, as Johnson said sometimes he's hounded for free tickets.

Jimmie Johnson

"I've been doing this long enough now that I've worked through all of those issues and just get to see my close friends here," Johnson said.

Greg Sacks is expecting to attempt to qualify for next weekend's race at Richmond, if his Nextel Cup car makes it through Hurricane Frances.

Daytona Speed, Inc. employees boarded up the shop in Daytona Beach this week and were prepared to ride out the storm.

"What can you do? We're not in an evacuation area, so we boarded up the windows and got everything inside that was outside -- the same things everybody is doing at home," Sacks said. "After that, all you can do is wait and hope and pray -- for ourselves, and for everybody else who is being affected by the hurricane.

"Racers are racers, man. They don't think about anything else. If Dorothy had been a racer, instead of holding Toto in the tornado in 'Wizard of Oz,' she would have been yelling at somebody to check the camber one more time.

"So we're just going to check the camber one more time, and be ready to go at Richmond next week. We can't do anything about the storm, so we're concentrating on the things we can control."