Dry spell for Gordon sparks memories of 1998 season

So who do you like at Phoenix this Saturday night? Are you trying to win the race? Are you trying to hang on to the top spot in the race to the Chase? Are you trying to get into the top 12 in points? Do you need to crack into the top 35 in owner points?

I love the honest emotion we have seen from Jeff Gordon this season. This is a guy who loves to win. Don't we all? He was never spoiled by winning and never took it for granted. He has used his success as a platform for the future. He expects to be up front every week, to challenge, to pursue the championship. Sure, he still has never won at Texas. But this week we go to Phoenix. Oh, he has yet to win there, too. Would you like to guess how many top-10 finishes Gordon has in the last 11 races at Phoenix? Ah, c'mon. Try.

He has finished in the top 10 in 10 of the last 11 races there. Four of those are top-five finishes. In his first Phoenix race in 1993 Gordon started ninth and finished 35th. In November of 1997, he finished 17th. His only finish outside the top 10 in the last eleven races at Phoenix was a 12th-place run in April of 2005. In his 16 starts at Phoenix, he has 13 top-10 finishes.

No wins, but good runs at Phoenix.

"I really enjoy the challenge of this track, and we generally seem to run well here," Gordon said. "There were a couple of times I thought we had a shot at the victory but pit strategy or something else ruined those chances. There have been other times, though, when we fought the handling all day but salvaged a respectable finish.

"This race should be very interesting with the new car. It's hard not to compare it to the current car which has a certain feel and comfort level that we don't yet have in the Car of Tomorrow.

"But all teams are fighting through that. It may not give me the comfort level I'm looking for, but we have to get as much speed out of the car as possible while making it handle the best we can.

"Hopefully, we do that better than the competition."

Gordon has not won this season. His last victory came at the Chicagoland Speedway on July 9, 2006. That was at the halfway point of last season. He was 10th in the championship standings. After that win, it was a roller-coaster ride the rest of the year. He made the Chase, but after finishing third at New Hampshire and Dover, not too many good things happened for the 24 team.

That means Gordon has not won in his last 25 starts, the final 18 of last year and the first seven of this year.

In 2005 he won at Martinsville in late October. He did not win again until Sonoma in June of 2006. Two weeks later he got the win in Joliet -- no wins since then. So if my math is correct, that's just two wins in the last 47 races. The only reason I am throwing out all these numbers is because I really didn't realize this was the case. I didn't sit down to write about Gordon. Every few weeks I just like to touch on selected guys, where they are in points, and why. So I started looking at some of the numbers for the 24 bunch. I look at their numbers and think, these guys are impressive. Even when they are not running well, you get the impression they are. Even when they are not winning races, you get the feeling they are about to win again.

How about a little history?

Ten Phoenix races ago, another veteran driver came to Phoenix hungry for a win. He had gone 59 races without a victory but was still a threat on the track. He also shared his frustration and emotion but never let the winless streak chip away at his determination. I can remember several weeks where it certainly looked like this guy was going to take the checkered flag, but every race passed with another star celebrating the win.

He came into the 1998 season with a 29-race winless streak. He started the season with a ton of muscle -- five consecutive top-five finishes, and after a second-place run at Rockingham in the second race of the season, he led the championship standings for the next eight races

He was second at Charlotte and third at Richmond. Then in the 11 races starting at Sonoma he had 10 finishes of eighth or better, but no wins. Still, this guy was fourth in points.

Things didn't go too well for a few weeks, but he remained fourth in points. In 1998, the Pepsi 400 was run late in the year because wild fires in the Daytona Beach area forced the race to be postponed. He finished fifth in the 400.

There were three races remaining in the season as the series headed for Phoenix. Back then, there was just one race a year at that track.

It was a cloudy day. Not what you expect at Phoenix. Ken Schrader won the pole. Gordon and Mark Martin were 1-2 in the championship standings.

The race was eventually shortened by rain. It was called after 257 laps following a 55-minute rain delay. One guy led 196 of those 257 laps and ended his 59-race winless streak. The winner that day in Phoenix was Rusty Wallace. It was his first and only victory at Phoenix.

Wallace finished out the season with a third-place run at Rockingham and a 20th-place in Atlanta. He finished fourth in points.

I can remember talking to Rusty and his crew many times during that 1998 season. They all felt they had the car and the resources to win. There was never any doubting the driver.

They finished the season with 15 top-five and 21 top-10 finishes in 33 races. They had just two DNFs.

The 1998 season was a fun year. We should have known that on opening day, when the late Dale Earnhardt won his first and only Daytona 500. Car owner Richard Childress started the 1998 season in Victory Lane, right where he started it this season when Kevin Harvick won the Daytona 500.

Thirty-two of the 33 races were won by drivers in the final top 10 in points. Ricky Rudd had a dreadful year. He finished 22nd in points and had seven DNFs. But on a scorching September Sunday he beat the heat and the competition to win on the half-mile at Martinsville for his 20th career victory. Man was it hot! As I recall, he did the Victory Lane interview sitting on the ground after being doused with cold water.

Bobby Hamilton finished 10th in points. He won at Martinsville in the spring of 1998. The race was run on Monday. It had rained on Sunday.

Darrell Waltrip had a brief resurgence, a fifth-place finish at California and a sixth at Pocono, driving the 1 car for Dale Earnhardt Inc. as a sub for the injured Steve Park. I have to admit, the crowds went wild.

Right about now, you might be trying to figure out how I am going to relate all of this back to Gordon. Darned if I know. I just started out taking a drive down memory lane and turned it into a day-long trip.

But I can tell you this, one of the reasons Wallace had just one win in 1998 was because twice that year he finished second to ... Gordon. In fact, of Wallace's 15 top-five finishes, six times the race winner was Gordon.

Gordon won 13 races in 1998 and the series championship by 364 points ahead of Martin. Three-time race winner Dale Jarrett was third.

For the record, at Phoenix that year, Gordon finished seventh.

It doesn't matter how many races you have won, or how many you almost won. The most important win of your career is always the next one. Rusty Wallace knew that heading into Phoenix in 1998. Jeff Gordon knows it heading into Phoenix in 2007.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.