AVONDALE, Ariz. -- Standing on the edge of his hauler in an attempt to catch a bit of a cool desert breeze after a hot 375 laps around Phoenix International Raceway on Saturday night, Robby Gordon reveled in his first top-15 finish in 31 races. At the same time, Gordon was probably the least surprised person in the garage.

In his opinion, finishing 14th in the Subway Fresh Fit 600 was more than overdue. It was finally a reprieve from the bad luck that seems to have followed the No. 7 Toyota team around like a black cloud all of 2010.

“

We're back in the game. If you can run inside the top 15, it's a compliment to all the guys who work on this car.

”

-- ROBBY GORDON

"We were running 11th on the last lap at Daytona and got wrecked by [Jeff] Gordon, not that it was his fault," Gordon said. "He just got loose and got everybody. California, we blew up. [Las] Vegas, I hit the wall on something like Lap 4. Popped a tire at Atlanta on the second lap and it took the cord off the tire.

"At Bristol, we finished 22nd, [we were] 14th tonight and we were easily a top-20 car at Martinsville. Our cars are good, our team is good, so we needed a little momentum to help us. The guys put in a lot of hours during the holiday week last week and a finish like this helps it pay off."

Consider that coming into Phoenix, Gordon had four finishes of 32nd or worse, and a best of 22nd, combining to leave him outside of the top 35 in owners' points this weekend. But starting 33rd, Gordon made steady progress through the field, moving into the top 20 within the first 100 laps and cracking the top 15 by halfway.

Then it was just a matter of hanging on as the sun set and the track cooled. Gordon dropped back to 19th at one point before rallying over the closing laps to earn his first top-15 finish since he was credited with a third-place finish in the rain-shortened 2009 Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte.

"It definitely tightened up," Gordon said. "It was a handful as the run went on. For us, the guys did a good job. They made the right adjustments. [We were] maybe too loose there on the run right before the end, but we were good when it counted at the end."

Gordon was in the thick of a multi-car battle for most of the second half of the race that included A.J. Allmendinger, Sam Hornish Jr., Martin Truex Jr. and Jamie McMurray. And that in itself was something Gordon would take away as a positive.

"We're definitely going in the right direction," Gordon said. "We popped a couple of tires last weekend at Martinsville. That was definitely a team mistake but we know what we did wrong there."

And by finishing 14th, Gordon slipped into 35th in the owners' standings by seven points over Bob Jenkins' No. 34, meaning he won't have to worry about making the field for the time being.

"We're back in the game," Gordon said. "If you can run inside the top 15, it's a compliment to all the guys who work on this car."

And as his crew packed up the hauler for the return trip to North Carolina, Robby Gordon glanced up at an evening sky devoid of clouds, black ones or otherwise.