INDIANAPOLIS -- At the Brickyard 400, a good car will get you a decent finish. But it takes a great car to win.

That is the best way to characterize Jeff Gordon's outing this weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where his team finished a disappointing 23rd Sunday. The No. 24 crew battled an ill-handling race car early in the race before ultimately hitting an unknown piece of debris on the track that broke the front splitter and caused major damage to the car.

“

To be honest with you, 23rd for what we went through today wasn't that bad.

”

-- JEFF GORDON

"It broke the splitter brace and then cut both right side tires and since this place is so fast and you're so low to the ground anyway we just drug the rest of the splitter off," said Steve Letarte, Gordon's crew chief. "But we did good. Jeff stayed calm; we got the wave around and stayed on the lead lap, replaced the splitter and got the best finish we could."

Still, the performance was questionable early in the race. Gordon complained the car was pushing and hard to drive in the corners.

"We struggled all weekend," Letarte said. "We were a good car, just never great, and here a good car with track position you might have a chance. Just a good car will get you about 10th and that's what we were. We couldn't make our own destiny, we weren't good enough to pass and that's what you need to be."

In preparation for the Brickyard, four practice sessions were held. Gordon was never faster than 25th on the speed chart.

"We needed to have a better car and if we weren't running in the back, maybe this wouldn't have happened," Letarte said.

Still, Gordon qualified in the eighth spot on the grid for Sunday's event -- an event that he has won four times -- and his day looked promising. Keep in mind, Gordon has only finished outside the top 10 four times since the inaugural event took place in 1994.

But some things are out of the driver's hands and control as evidenced by what transpired on Lap 129 in Turn 1.

"We were just kind of doing our best, and all of a sudden I felt a big vibration," Gordon said. "I thought I had a loose wheel but then they said the splitter was vibrating and then, I don't know, it must have broken off and cut the right-side tires."

At that point, Gordon said he just went along for a ride.

"I got pretty lucky, actually, with it," he said. "We didn't tear the car up down there in Turn 1 and we fixed it the best we could and just brought it home."

Gordon said he still is not sure what his car hit on the track to cause his splitter to break.

"There was a bunch of action going on down the back straightaway and we were three-wide and I don't know if I just ran over something," Gordon said. "I'm not really sure. We're going to go back and find out. But I'm pretty sure that when that splitter broke, I ran over it and it cut the right rear [tire], but the right front [tire] was going on as well. We were just salvaging what we could out of the day. To be honest with you, 23rd for what we went through today wasn't that bad."