Jeff Gordon is back on track on the 1.5-mile speedways. Credit: CIA Stock Photo

Gordon finding setups to suit his driving style

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- At some point within the past year -- it is unclear when -- Jeff Gordon finally decided there was more to racing than going out and seeing if Jimmie Johnson's setups could help him score that elusive fifth championship.

When Gordon won his fourth title in 2001, Johnson wasn't a blip on the Cup radar. By 2006, Johnson was one of the sport's top-five drivers, a man who has been in the title hunt for every one of his four seasons.

	Steve Letarte began making a difference on the 1.5-mile tracks for Jeff Gordon in Fall 2005. Credit: Autostock
	Inside the Numbers Jeff Gordon in 2005-06 (on 1.5- and 2-mile tracks) Site 2005 2006 Fontana (a) 30 13 Las Vegas 4 5 Atlanta (a) 39 4 Texas (a) 15 22 Charlotte (a) 30 36 Michigan (a) 32 8 Chicago 33 1 Michigan (b) 15 2 Fontana (b) 21 5 Kansas 10 ? Charlotte (b) 38 ? Atlanta (b) 2 ? Texas (b) 14 ? Homestead 9 ?

Because Johnson and Gordon worked so closely together, Gordon often found himself wondering why his own cars struggled on the faster speedways.

The answer was simple. Gordon's team, especially when crew chief Steve Letarte was hired in Sept. 2005, stopped asking Gordon to run cars designed for younger drivers like Johnson and Kyle Busch.

Despite the close connection between Johnson and Gordon, their driving styles are far different. Johnson likes a loose racecar, one that often requires using the brake pedal to set the nose before mashing the gas.

Gordon, despite being only 35 years old, has to be considered old school because he remembers vividly how the cars drove 10 years ago. Because of this, he prefers to float the car into the corner while gradually transitioning the motor for optimum straightaway speed.

"I know a combination of success that works for me. I know what I need to go fast," Gordon said. "There is a certain area of the corner that has to be comfortable to me.

"I like to drive in pretty deep, and I don't like to use a lot of brake. I like to carry a lot of speed through the middle but not by using a lot of throttle. A lot of the younger guys drive in deep and use a lot of brake, get the car turned and use a lot of throttle."

At some point, Letarte and Gordon finally managed to begin altering the setups to fit Gordon's tastes. Once they accomplished that, Gordon's fortunes, which sank to a new low when he missed the Chase in 2005, started to improve.

"It started all last year when we tested Atlanta," Gordon said. "[We] started playing around and it wasn't your typical test.

	What works for Jimmie Johnson doesn't for Jeff Gordon. Credit: Autostock
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"We went to the track and we took our aero guys and took engineers and took guys that thought outside of the box because I just wasn't comfortable with the setups that we were running, wasn't comfortable coming into the corner and wasn't comfortable coming back into the throttle.

"We hit on some things, and we had a crew chief that had open ideas, and that helped. We started moving forward and kept going in that direction."

The results have been startling. During most of 2005, Gordon couldn't get out of his own way on the faster speedways. A particularly low point came during the summer, when Gordon failed to crack the top 10 at Chicago, Michigan or Fontana.

During that same stretch of three races in 2006, Gordon never finished worse than eighth, and his win at Chicago in July was his first in a long time on a 1.5-mile track.

The turnaround, Gordon says, is because his team can finally adjust the car to fit his style.

"Let's say [Johnson's team] finds something that they are going to try [that] really showed up good in a test or some data," Gordon said. "We will take it and adjust it for me.

"We won't just say, 'We found this and it worked for them and now we are going to do it.' We would still adjust it for me. Every driver drives different."