For Gordon, wins seem so close, and yet so far away

CONCORD, N.C. -- The right side of the racecar looked like it had been wiped by a wide paintbrush, blending all the blues and yellows and oranges into one indiscernible stripe. The impact with the outside wall was remembered in a series of dents and ridges extending from the vehicle's nose to its rear quarter panel, resulting in something that looked less like a collection of sponsor logos and more like some twisted attempt at modern art.

It was a beaten and bruised No. 24 car that Jeff Gordon's crewmen loaded into the team transporter Saturday night after an eighth-place finish at Lowe's Motor Speedway. At 245 points behind Sprint Cup leader and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson with five races remaining, the quest for a fifth series championship is all but finished. But the quest for a first victory this season still goes on.

"The point situation is pretty much over," crew chief Steve Letarte said after an adventurous night that saw Gordon hit the wall twice, lose a lap, and come back to lead 46 laps. "We kind of look at the highlights, and the highlights are, we're going to go to Martinsville and hopefully run well. We've never won at Texas and Homestead, so we're going to put a lot of chips, a lot of stuff in that basket, see if we win on a high note. Since I've taken over, there were four tracks we haven't won at. We've won at Phoenix, we've won at Chicago, so there's two more we want to win at."

For Gordon, the Bank of America 500 was his season in microcosm: good, but not quite good enough. There were times when the No. 24 car was out front and sailing, and it seemed the end of a now 36-race winless streak was in sight. Then there were times when Gordon was mired in traffic, his process and his countenance frustrated by aerodynamics, his hopes of chasing down eventual winner Jeff Burton fading with every successive lap. He's still Jeff Gordon, still able to pull a top-10 finish out of a crippled car that probably shouldn't have finished that high. But it's now been a year since his last victory, at Charlotte last season. And the stunning prospect of a winless 2008 -- his first such campaign since his rookie year of 1993 -- looms ominously, like the sight of Johnson's No. 48 car in the rear-view mirror.

Winning for this team seems so close, yet so far away, all at the same time. Saturday's result was a familiar one -- strong enough to crack the top 10, even with trouble, but not strong enough to be in the mix at the very end. Gordon battled Kyle Busch and lapped traffic as Burton ran away from Kasey Kahne in the final laps.

"When we had the damage, to come back and get in the top 10 is phenomenal," said Gordon, who bounced back from a crash last week at Talladega Superspeedway. "It was nice when we were out front there, and the car drove that awesome that it gave us some hope that we could win it. But the only way we were going to win it is if the fuel mileage worked out and it went green all the way to the end." (Continued)