For Gordon, even good might not be good enough (cont'd)

He did, rallying to finish seventh. But he was never able to challenge Johnson for the win. "This really is probably one of my worst tracks," he said of Texas, along with Homestead-Miami Speedway the only two active Cup venues where he hasn't won. "This place is so finicky, I really have a tough time trying to judge what we need to go fast here. I'm glad to get out of here with a seventh-place finish, to be honest with you. There are times when I thought I was going to be backed in the wall."

"It's very frustrating when you come to a mile-and-a-half track and you struggle, especially a place that's this fast," Letarte added. "There's not much a driver can do for you when the car's not right. But I'm really proud of the guys [Sunday night]. They've never given up on a race this year, and I think it shows with our top-five and top-10 totals. Obviously, we need to run a little better and get to where we need to be in the points, but we can't hang our heads about this. If we lose the championship running in the top 10, then it wasn't meant to be."

The twist of the knife came at the very end, when Johnson passed Matt Kenseth for the lead with three laps remaining, a move that turned a 15-point lead into 30. The pre-Chase days when Gordon enjoyed a 317-point lead felt long ago in the dusk at Texas, where for the first time this season it seemed the championship was getting away. Yes, there are two races remaining, and 30 points is only the difference between first and fourth. But given Gordon's historic struggles at Homestead, where the season concludes Nov. 18, next week's race at Phoenix -- where the No. 24 car won in the spring -- looms as a potential decider.

"All we can do is go out and perform the best we possibly can, just like [Sunday night], and hope that it's enough to be ahead of the guys we're racing like Jimmie," Gordon said. "We can't control what they're doing. They're doing a great job. You can't take anything away from that. It's hard for anybody right now to step up and beat them, let alone us."

At times Sunday night Gordon's frustration was palpable. "I don't give a s--- what you do. Just free this thing up," he grumbled once over the radio. But even after Texas, his average finish in the eight Chase races is 4.6, better than Johnson's 5.2. Gordon is showing the same numbing consistency he used to build his mammoth lead in the regular season. But in the Chase, good isn't good enough against a teammate who suddenly appears bulletproof.

"Jeff hasn't had bad races the last few races," Johnson said. "He's been strong. It's not like he's had bad nights."

But Sunday felt like one anyway. "I'm just mad we sucked [Sunday night]," Gordon said, waking away from pit road. This week, he'll celebrate his wife's birthday and his one-year wedding anniversary. Then he'll go to Phoenix, and make what may be a last stand in a championship race that once seemed his alone.

"We've been battling as hard as we can to get the best finishes that we can," Gordon said. "It's disappointing we got beat like we have the past three weeks. All we can do is go to the next race and hope to turn it around and get some momentum back on our side. There's really no way to put it other than they've been performing excellent, and we haven't stepped up to where we need to."

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.