FONTANA, Calif. -- Shortly after climbing out of his No. 24 Chevrolet and discussing his strange Sunday briefly with crew chief Steve Letarte and a gaggle of other Hendrick Motorsports officials who were huddled in a small, serious group, driver Jeff Gordon was handed a very special package.

Hoisting his daughter, Ella, under his left arm, Gordon told her, "You make me smile."

That was no easy feat Sunday after all Gordon endured for more than three and a half hours on the 2-mile track at Auto Club Speedway. In the span of about 10 laps beginning when Gordon first came over his radio to report to Letarte that he suspected engine trouble on Lap 174, Gordon went from thinking he might just win the Auto Club 500 to fearing that he wouldn't even finish it.

In the end, he had to settle for something in between.

When Gordon reported to Letarte that the engine was missing, Letarte told his driver: "Run it for all it's worth. The rain is coming."

And it did, bringing out the caution on Lap 194. But the rain showers didn't last for long -- while the engine problems for the No. 24 car did.

"We were third or fourth and looking good," Gordon said. "The rain was coming. We weren't in bad shape. We certainly were in position to have a top-four or -five, if not have a chance at winning.

"Instead, now I'm feeling pretty fortunate that we finished 20th."

Letarte added: "Honestly when we were sitting fourth there and it was raining, I just wish it would have just gotten rained out there -- because we knew we had a motor problem, and I've never seen those fix themselves yet.

"It started to fire again, but you knew it was just temporary. Those things never fix themselves. So it would run for a little while and you'd start to think maybe you were going to be OK, and then on that one restart he got into the gas and there was nothing there, and then we gave up all that track position."

Letarte and Gordon said that their problems were related to spark plugs that were misfiring. At times over the final 75 laps the car would run smoothly on all cylinders -- and others, it was running on only seven or even just six.

"All I know is I was down two cylinders," Gordon said. "I don't know enough about spark plugs to know exactly what happened. But I know when an engine isn't running right." (Continued)