Defending race winner eyes another Kansas victory
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KANSAS CITY, Kan. – A year ago this time, a winless Jeff Gordon pulled into Kansas Speedway coming off a disappointing, 39th-place finish at Talladega Superspeedway.
The four-time champion sat down at the press room podium on Friday in a similar position – winless, coming off a 31st-place 'Dega finish in a race he started on the pole.
Only difference?
He arrived at the 1.5-mile speedway as the points leader through 10 races last season, while he stands mired in 13th ahead of Saturday night's SpongeBob SquarePants 400 (Saturday, 7:30 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1, MRN, SiriusXM).
Gordon, of course, wound up winning last season's spring Kansas race, helping propel him to one of his best seasons in years. While the No. 24 Chevrolet squad's intermediate program hasn't exactly been where Gordon would hope in 2015, his comfort level and past history – he won the first two races here – at Kansas set him among the favorites for Saturday.
WATCH: See how Gordon won the first race at Kansas
"I do like this track and I think our chances are always good when we come to Kansas," Gordon said Friday. "But I'm the first one to admit that our mile-and-a-half program is not up to par with a couple of other teams that seem to be beating us every weekend on these types of tracks.
"No one's working harder than (crew chief) Alan Gustafson and our group to find that extra speed and get ourselves in position to win races more consistently. There's a lot of ways to win, so it’s not always guaranteed that you have to have the fastest car. But we pride ourselves on having the fastest car and we're not going to settle for anything other than that."
The "other teams" that Gordon alluded to – with a wry smile, naturally – are almost certainly the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet (of Kevin Harvick, with whom Hendrick Motorsports has a technical alliance) No. 48 HMS Chevy (of teammate Jimmie Johnson) and No. 22 Team Penske Ford (of Joey Logano). Kurt Busch's No. 41 SHR Chevy could also be thrown in there, given how fast it's been overall, though the 2004 champ missed the season's first two intermediate races.
RELATED: See how Gordon stacks up heading into Kansas
Consider that group among the few that have figured out the speedway since its repave at the end of 2012, and the few – Gordon included – that have a serious shot at holding a giant, yellow trophy with SpongeBob's face on it Saturday night.
"With the repave, I'm always concerned with how competitive we're going to be on a track where we've been so competitive when things change. But I think we proved last year that we can still be very competitive here," Gordon said. "We had a great race. Kevin (Harvick) was extremely strong but we were right there with him. Under the green-flag stop, we were able to get the lead and complete it. So this year we're certainly optimistic about coming back here with how well we ran here last year that we can repeat that performance. We're certainly excited about the weekend."
Gordon said that while he's had so much success throughout his expansive NASCAR career at numerous tracks – and that many rank among his favorites – Kansas is easily a "top-five" for him.
"I'm certainly very comfortable and enjoy this track. But you're talking about going against tracks like Indianapolis, which certainly goes to the top of my list, or Bristol or Michigan are ones that stand out. I like a lot of tracks, so it's hard to grade them in any way. But Kansas is certainly way up there."
As for hometown favorite and fellow competitor Clint Bowyer?
"Clint Bowyer on the other hand," Gordon said, jokingly, as the jovial Michael Waltrip Racing driver walked into the interview room as Gordon was wrapping up. "He's somewhere in my top 15 or 20 drivers of all-time."