Posted on by Staff Report

Report: NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Sunoco Rookie of the Year rivals announce relationship

Danica Patrick and Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who will compete against each other full time in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series this season, are dating off track, according to an Associated Press report.

"We are dating, and I know there’s been a bit of a runaround this week at the media days and poor Ricky got grilled (with questions)," Patrick told the AP. "It was out of respect to NASCAR, to all the manufacturers, the new cars, the teams, the sponsors, just to allow all the news of the day to be about racing and not let anything interfere with that."

Patrick also acknowledged the relationship on Friday via Twitter, retweeting the AP story and telling fans, "Thanks everyone for all of your nice messages."

Earlier this month, Patrick filed for divorce from husband Paul Hospenthal after seven years of marriage. She announced the split via Facebook on Nov. 20.

In Friday’s report, Stenhouse tells the AP, "Yes, we are dating." At Thursday’s Roush Fenway Racing stop on the NASCAR Sprint Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway, Stenhouse said of Patrick, "We’ve got a great relationship. Obviously that started when she first came into the sport. We were both going to rookie meetings. It’s been cool to work with her in the Nationwide Series. I felt she could come to me for advice with the experience that I’ve had."

Stenhouse won his second consecutive NASCAR Nationwide Series championship last year while Patrick finished 10th in the series, becoming the first woman to finish among the overall top 10 in a NASCAR national series.

In 2013, the two drivers will compete for Sunoco Rookie of the Year honors in the Sprint Cup Series. On Thursday, Stenhouse acknowledged and welcomed the friendly competition.

"Obviously, our friendship is great," Stenhouse said. "Who knows what it’ll be like when it’s coming down to the wire? It’s going to be a lot of fun. We’re ready to go out there and win it, and that’s our plan."

At Stewart Haas Racing on Monday, Patrick said of Stenhouse and their rookie rivalry, "Both of us are running for rookie of the year, and I’m sure we both want that."

Last year, Patrick and Stenhouse raced against each other twice in NASCAR’s top series. Stenhouse finished 20th to Patrick’s 38th-place result in the season-opening Daytona 500. Last September at Dover, Stenhouse finished 12th while Patrick was 28th.

Stenhouse has five career Sprint Cup starts with a best finish of 11th at Charlotte in his debut in May of 2011. Patrick’s best series finish in 10 starts is 17th at Phoenix last November.

Posted on by George Winkler

Camping World Truck Series director eases into new role

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Representing the second of three generations in a racing family, Chad Little knows what it takes to move up the ranks within the sport. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to see him in his new role as director of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.
 
Little has worked in a variety of roles since his career behind the wheel ended in 2002 after 217 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starts and a second-place finish in the NASCAR Nationwide Series in 1995. Most recently, he was the director for the Whelen Modified Tour as well as the director for racing development for the NASCAR Mexico Corona Series.
 
During the NASCAR Sprint Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway, Little said he was excited about the opportunity to be the competition director for the Truck Series. With champion James Buescher back for another season and with a different winner, it seems, every week, there is a lot for fans to look forward to.

“All of the people in NASCAR were pretty consistent in saying there’s not a lot of issues in the Truck Series,” Little said. “I want to sit back and look at it before I do anything to change it, because it seems like it’s a well-oiled machine.”
 
“I think Eldora is very exciting, the race in Canada at the Canadian Tire Motorsport Park is exciting,” Little said. “Obviously, the young drivers coming in, the number of new winners that the Truck Series sees each year, a lot of things like that. But as new as I am, I want to reserve judgment for a little bit.”
 
While Little is taking something of a wait-and-see approach with his new job, he is just as busy as he was during his racing career, when he balanced his responsibilities as a driver with getting an education. The Spokane, Wash., native earned a degree in marketing from Washington State University and a law degree from Gonzaga University.
 
He said education was the key in making a successful transition from being a driver to the path that led him to his current role as director.
 
“A young driver has to balance whether it’s important to get a degree … or does that take away from his driving,” Little said. “And that’s an important decision, especially nowadays with as young as they start driving. I think the education part is something you have to look at beyond your driving career.”
 
Little’s son, Jesse, is certainly faced with that challenge. The 15-year-old is set to run a full season in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East this year after having a limited engagement last year. The elder Little wants his son to be focused on his racing but to think about education as well.
 
And whether it’s with education or moving through life, Little says he’d give any driver, including his son, the same advice as far as trying to be successful in this line of work.
 
“Don’t burn any bridges,” Little said. “As big as the world of motorsports is, sometimes it’s still amazing how small it is. We turn around, and we meet people we’ve known for a long time. So that’s one (piece of) advice: don’t ever close your doors.”

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Former Daytona 500 winner thrilled about 2013, could join top circuit next year

CONCORD, N.C. — After a frustrating season of juggling limited schedules on two circuits, Trevor Bayne finally has a full-time ride on the Nationwide Series for this year. And he might not have to wait that much longer before he’s a fixture in NASCAR’s premier division as well.

The former Daytona 500 champion, who in addition to his Nationwide duties for Roush Fenway will once again compete part-time on the Sprint Cup Series for the Wood Brothers, hopes to be in a full-time car on that same level with Jack Roush’s organization next season.

“That’s our plan,” he said Thursday during the NASCAR Sprint Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway. “We’d love to do that. Funding is obviously always an issue, but I think that is Jack’s goal. That’s my goal. Everybody at the shop kind of knows that, and we want to make the most out of this year. I’ve been looking so forward to this year, it’s hard to look past it.”

Roush currently has three Sprint Cup drivers — Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards, and rookie Ricky Stenhouse Jr. — with room to add one more. Bayne is under contract with Roush, but his development has been slowed first by a bout with Lyme disease and then by sponsorship shortages at RFR, the latter of which forced him into a partial Nationwide slate for 2012.

For the past two seasons Bayne has competed in select Sprint Cup events for the Wood Brothers, a Ford team affiliated with Roush, and with whom the affable 21-year-old shocked the NASCAR world in 2011 by winning the Daytona 500. Roush hopes to add Bayne to his Sprint Cup stable for the 2014 campaign.

“That’s the long-range goal, but that’s TBD on how ’13 goes,” he said. “When we started Ricky two years ago, we had hoped to put Trevor on the same path, and of course he had his health problems the first year, and we had some challenges with sponsorship last year that limited what we could do. So when we looked at it from 2011, we hoped to put him in a Cup car in 2014. And that’s still a goal. But it’s probably not as imperative as ensuring he spends enough time in the Nationwide Series to really do the growth and development he can benefit from before he moves on to Cup. Whether that’s 2014 or whether it’s later, that’s TBD.”

Ideally Bayne would like to run the full Sprint Cup slate this year with the Wood Brothers, who haven’t discounted the possibility if the team can find enough sponsorship. Right now, the Woods are content to run a limited schedule rather than overextending their resources. The team will run 12 events this season backed by Motorcraft and Quick Lane, with the possibility of four to six more funded by other sponsors.

“As long as you’re able to race, that beats the alternative,” team co-owner Eddie Wood said. “We’re constantly searching and trying to find money, and we just really haven’t been able to turn anything over that really fits. We’ve had some things — we’ve had some (potential) investors that called, and some people who wanted to merge, and it just doesn’t fit us. We’ve always been our own race team, and that’s the way we’re going to stay.”

Clearly, that approach comes with some risks — such as potentially losing a driver like Bayne, whose Daytona 500 victory breathed new life into a historic organization that had suffered through some very difficult times. Bayne first competed for the Woods in a single event at Texas near the end of the 2010 season, and has been closely identified with them ever since.

“I don’t know how long it’s going to last,” Wood said.  “We’ve been really fortunate to have Trevor. When he signed up for that first season, we’d run one race at Texas, and all of that came about as an accident. He just kept growing, and we went to Daytona and we were fortunate enough to win the race. We really get along well. He works well with our crew chief and all our engineers … and it’s a really nice little package. I’m hoping he can stay with us from now on. If we could find funding, then he stays with us.”

If not, he’ll likely be bound for Roush — which Wood says has been part of the conversation from the very beginning.

“That’s never really changed,” Wood said. “The first year Trevor was with us, we had no idea what he was going to do the next year, because if they were in position to have their fourth car, that would have been Trevor. And that’s fine. We’re glad to be a part of what’s going on, and if Trevor does go to Jack’s fourth car next year, that will be great for Trevor and great for Jack, and we’ll get the next guy. No big deal. If our position is to help develop drivers for someone else, that’s fine. There are a lot of good young kids coming up, and we’ve got one of the best ones right now. I hope we can keep him, but … in the end, he’s Jack’s boy. We’re just happy to have him.”

And Bayne is just happy to race. Now that he has a full Nationwide ride, he’s comfortable spending more time at the Roush shop, venturing down the street to the Wood Brothers facility about once a week. Wednesday he was at a wind tunnel, watching his Sprint Cup car roll out and his Nationwide vehicle roll in.

“That,” he said, “is the most pumped up I’ve been in a long time.”

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No. 60 driver doing things his own way

Roush Fenway Racing’s five drivers sat in a row Thursday at the team’s visit to the NASCAR Hall of Fame, four of them with their hands on their laps, wearing black suits with a crisp gray button-up underneath, silver watches peeking past their left sleeves. At the end of the row sat Travis Pastrana, who stood out even though he also wore a watch and donned some gray: a black watch on his right hand, and a gray-and-purple plaid jacket on top of a purple shirt.

"I didn’t get the memo on the black suit," Pastrana joked as he was introduced at the Sprint Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway.

The former X Games star certainly stands out among teammates Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Trevor Bayne, a fact that’s embraced by both owner Jack Roush and his drivers.

"Travis is his own character," Biffle said. "He’s his own brand. If I go walk out on the street, I’m the driver of the 16 car, whatever. But Travis is his own brand and it’s his own image and I like that."

You can tell from Pastrana’s neon yellow and bright pink No. 60 Ford that, even on a sponsorship level, Pastrana is a different type of driver. The hood remains empty, waiting for a sponsor that will accept his personality as Jack Roush has.

"I really try to find a partner that’s going to be there for the long term, you know, hopefully we’ll get a couple races and then we’ll find the partner that fits," he said. "The search is still on for someone that fits, for a sponsor that looks at this car and says, ‘Yeah, that’s our guy.’"

That thought crossed Trevor Bayne’s mind in 2009, when he helped bring Pastrana to NASCAR after showing up at a Red Bull event with then-Diamond-Waltrip Racing’s Blake Bechtel. Even though you probably won’t find a purple plaid suit in Bayne’s closet, he’s looking forward to finally calling Pastrana a teammate.

"We have a lot in common; I wish my race car looked like his," Bayne said, smiling. "Luckily, he’s breaking the mold for Roush for me, because I’ve been trying to do this in NASCAR for a long time."

The action sports bond has eased the transition for Pastrana, who says many of his teammates are action sports fans.

"Especially with the drivers, there’s almost no difference between action sports guys, motocross guys, race car drivers," Pastrana said. "… They’ve grown up racing stuff. They’ve been crashing stuff their whole life."

Crashing stuff is not what Pastrana hopes to do this season in his first full-time series bid, considering that he believes his ability do things his own way depends on success.

"Bottom line is, I have to do well; you do well, and they’ll let it go, you don’t do well, and I’m going to be in a solid colored everything — suit and tie — and I’ll be trying to do everything that I can to figure out how to get into these cars," he said.

Pastrana, who still considers himself a rookie, will have a lot to learn this year, but believes the Roush team can offer him the structure and stability he needs to be successful. As a motocross rider, Pastrana moved in with his team manager to make sure he was motivated to train and earn his respect. And while he’s not packing his bags to move in with Roush, he expects similar inspiration. 

"With Jack (Roush), I’m going to do everything I possibly can to be there every day that he requests and everything because I have a lot of respect for him and his team."

Even wearing a Red Bull hat, Roush believes that attitude is what makes Pastrana fit into his team’s culture.

"He’s motivated, he’s driven, he’s ambitious, he’s talented and that fits in very well," Roush said. "The fact that he’s had the X Games and the rally series and all the other exhibition things that he’s done is different…. The fact that he dresses a little different, he’s got a different group of people that are his fans to this point certainly doesn’t cause me any problem."

Pastrana’s true test will be what he can do with the pink and yellow No. 60 car, painted so after his dad complained about not being able to pick out the car on the track.

"Even Jack, he’s like, ‘All right, you say you can do this, this and this. Go ahead. I’m going to give you everything you need at your fingertips; take what you want, don’t take what you don’t want, and let’s see if we can make a champion out of you.’"

Posted on by Holly Cain

Chip Ganassi Racing sweeps front row for first time in event history

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — As expected, the Daytona 500-winning Chip Ganassi Racing team made a strong statement in Thursday’s qualifying for the Rolex 24 at Daytona sports car season-opener, for the first time ever sweeping the front row with its star-studded lineup of sports car, NASCAR and IndyCar drivers.

Thanks to a fast lap by his five-time Grand-Am Rolex Series sports car champion co-driver Scott Pruett, NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Juan Pablo Montoya will at least start this weekend’s Rolex 24 up front. A finish there would give Montoya his third Rolex win — the most ever by a NASCAR regular.

"Getting to drive for Chip (Ganassi) on the NASCAR side obviously puts you in a car that’s capable of winning here."

— Jamie McMurray

He leads a handful of NASCAR’s best who were well-represented in qualifying for the classic twice-around-the-clock race on the 3.56-mile Daytona International Speedway road course.

Pruett’s pole-winning lap of 127.455 mph in the No. 01 TELMEX BMW/Riley was less than a tenth of a second faster than his Ganassi teammate Scott Dixon’s effort in the marquee Daytona Prototype class.

The 2010 Daytona 500 winner Jamie McMurray will co-drive with the former IndyCar champ Dixon.

And 2011 Sprint Cup Series Rookie of the Year Andy Lally just missed the pole in the GT-class. With less than 10 minutes remaining in the session, Nick Tandy’s lap of 119.074 mph in the No. 32 Konrad Motorsports Porsche GT3 swiped the top spot from defending class winner Lally in the No. 44 Magnus Racing Porsche GT3.

Two-time Daytona 500 winner Michael Waltrip and last year’s Sprint Cup Series champion runner-up Clint Bowyer will start 33rd overall and 17th in the GT-class co-driving the No. 56 Ferrari 458.

While the Ganassi team’s showing isn’t new, it will be a new look in the driver lineup. It’s the first time McMurray and Montoya have been in separate Ganassi entries in the three years McMurray has entered the event.

“It’s the same group of guys that builds both cars and even more so than in NASCAR, it’s really all one team,’’ McMurray said. “But ultimately you want to win.

“I tell my wife every year before coming down here that this is like the biggest race you could win other than the Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400. It would be amazing to say you were a part of winning all those races.’’

McMurray would be the first to accomplish that. And he has good reason to like his chances considering Ganassi teams have won five of the past seven Rolex 24s — including a historic run of three consecutive victories from 2006-2008.

After being shut out from victory for 43 of the event’s first 50 years, NASCAR drivers have been apart of four of the last seven winning teams.

“Getting to drive for Chip on the NASCAR side obviously puts you in a car that’s capable of winning here,’’ McMurray said. “I don’t know how many of the other NASCAR guys got to be in a car that was really capable of winning before. It seems like there’s been more opportunity for NASCAR guys to get in better cars even outside of Chip’s cars.’’

The field of 57 cars will take the green flag at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday.

Posted on by Staff Report

Family of companies featured on Almirola’s No. 43 Ford in 25 races

Smithfield Foods announced Thursday it will expand its partnership with Richard Petty Motorsports to include its role as primary sponsor of the No. 43 Ford in 25 events during the 2013 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season.

Aric Almirola will drive the Smithfield Foods-backed No. 43 Ford in his second full-time season in the Sprint Cup Series.

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"We are thrilled to come back as a partner of Richard Petty Motorsports, Aric and the No. 43 team this season," said Joe Luter IV, executive vice president of Smithfield. "We were very pleased with the value that the partnership provided us and our customers in our first year together. We are already working hard to make our race program better this year."

In his first full-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, Almirola and his team secured a pole, earned one top-five and four top-10 finishes and finished 20th in the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship standings.

"We are happy to continue our partnership with Smithfield and its family of brands," said Richard Petty, co-owner of Richard Petty Motorsports. "The folks at Smithfield put some great programs into place last season, and we can’t wait to see what they have in store this year." 

Almirola not only became a partner of Smithfield last season, but also became part of its marketing programs, playing a key role in giving back.

Smithfield Foods and its family of brands — including Eckrich, Farmland, Gwaltney and Smithfield — will all participate as primary sponsors throughout the year.

Smithfield Foods is the world’s largest producer of pork products. The company says is will continue to engage NASCAR fans with unique marketing initiatives.

Posted on by Staff Report

Team looks to run full schedule if additional sponsorship is secured 

CERRO GORDO, N.C. — When Ricky Benton Racing Enterprises tabbed Scott Riggs to drive the No. 92 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series entry at Martinsville last fall, the veteran driver was just looking to go out and have a little fun running in the series where he got his start in NASCAR.

But after a fifth-place finish in the Kroger 200, Chevrolet, Riggs and team owner Ricky Benton decided to extend the relationship into 2013. Riggs will be behind the wheel of the No. 92 for at least the first five races of the upcoming season. RBR Enterprises is looking for additional sponsorship to expand its schedule, possibly the entire 22-race slate.  

"These guys have some great equipment," said Riggs. "We are going to see exactly where we are over the first five races and evaluate the program.

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"I believe we can get get the truck up front and run in the top-10. Our first goal is going to be consistently running on the lead lap. The top-10s will come if we can do that."  

Riggs is confident that going from a part-time team to a full-time one will not be a problem for RBR. 

"With the trucks that they have," Riggs said, "we can quickly ramp up to running the full schedule if we can get some good runs early and bring some more sponsorship on board."  

With Riggs behind the wheel, Benton is optimistic about his team’s 2013 outlook. 

"Scott is an amazing talent and we are couldn’t be happier to have him back in the truck this year," said Benton. "His run at Martinsville really energized the team.   

"We made some major improvements to our trucks during the off season. These guys on this team have been working very hard since we were last at track. I think we are going to have a great season and will be a great partner for anyone looking to get involved in the series in 2013."

Mike Hester will be returning to RBR Enterprises in 2013 to call the shots as the crew chief for the No. 92 truck. Hester served as crew chief at RBR in 2010 and 2011.

"It’s great to have Mike back with the team," said Benton. "We have been racing together for a long time and have had a lot of success. We are lucky he’s back home in 2013." 

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Driver was pursued by other teams when making decision

Joe Gibbs Racing formally announced Thursday that driver Kyle Busch has agreed to a long-term contract extension with the organization.

Busch came to JGR in 2008 and has won 20 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races in that time, eight of which came during a career-best season in his first year in a Gibbs Toyota.

“I did it all privately,” Busch said of the due diligence when contemplating his next step in what has been a successful Sprint Cup Series career. “I did meet with some other teams and they were very interested; very nice, lucrative deals, I guess you could say, that were out there to pursue.
 
“Ultimately what it comes down to (are) relationships and things that you have developed over the last … five or six years here. The relationship that I have with Coach (Joe) Gibbs and J.D. as well as the Toyota folks, the M&M’s folks, Toyota, Norm Miller (of sponsor Interstate Batteries), they treat me so well.”
 
Busch, Denny Hamlin and newcomer Matt Kenseth, formerly of Roush Fenway Racing, make up the JGR Cup stable. Kenseth joined the team during the offseason while Hamlin signed a contract extension last year.
 
Busch, 27, has 24 Cup wins and a best points finish of fifth. He has qualified for the Chase five times, but failed to do so last season.
 
“I did have options, which was awesome,” he said. “I just felt like obviously this was the best place for me. I’ve been here for a while now. I was a part of bringing Matt in; having Denny as teammate — that’s been working well the past few years; the three crew chiefs we have, Jason Ratcliff, who I’ve won a Nationwide championship with, Dave Rogers, who I’ve won Nationwide and Cup races with, and Darian Grubb who’s been at Hendrick (Motorsports) like I had.
 
“To me, it just shows nothing but positive growth over here for this organization.”
 
Rogers, Busch’s current crew chief, said he was never worried that his driver would bolt for greener pastures.
 
“Not at all,” Rogers said. “Kyle and I are great friends on and off the track. And we have a lot of one-on-one talks. I never got the impression that he was seriously looking at going elsewhere.
 
“The only thing he told me was, ‘hey I want to focus on racing during the season and focus on the contract during the offseason. I’m not going anywhere. You’re not going anywhere, so let’s not worry about it.’ So that wasn’t a big deal for us. I was confident that we’d be back here together this year.”
 
J.D. Gibbs said such information would have been nice to know, but “those crew chiefs, they’ve got their heads in the sand,” he said, laughing.
 
“No, it was something that we obviously wanted to get done sooner than later. We didn’t want a situation where you have a lame duck year. We’ve been doing this 21 years now, so there’s always a concern. But overall, we felt pretty good about it.”
 
In addition to his Cup contract extension, the agreement also calls for Busch to compete in 25 races for JGR in the Nationwide Series, where he will drive the No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota.
 
Last year, Busch drove for his own Kyle Busch Motorsports team. He said the organization would continue to compete in both the Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series.
 
“KBM is still running a full-time Nationwide car this year with Parker Kligerman in the No. 77 … and we have a full-time truck with Joey Coulter,” he said. “And I have my part-time truck that I’m going to run for approximately 10 races right now.”
 
In addition to his 24 Cup wins, Busch has a Nationwide Series-best 51 victories. He is No. 2 on the Truck Series’ win list with 30 career victories.

Posted on by Nascar

Gordon looks back on a time when he lost some confidence only to regain it quickly

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Nearly a dozen years removed from his most recent championship, Jeff Gordon understands all too well what it’s like to suddenly feel vulnerable.
 
“Absolutely,” the four-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion said Wednesday, citing a disappointing 2000 season as a prime example.
 
“A year,” he said, “that really stands out in my mind of a year that I lost confidence.”
 
To be sure, Gordon never completely lost the feeling that he could continue to contend for, and win, races and Cup titles. Still, it was an unsettling time, and the possibility that what had been a dominating run on the asphalt ovals across America was on the wane was all too real.

“When it has usually happened for me is when big transitions happen with the sport,” Gordon, 41, said during the Hendrick Motorsports portion of this year’s Sprint Media Tour. “Whether it be tires, setups (or) aerodynamics. What I remember so vividly about 2000, that was when big rear springs started to come into play. The cars weren’t just moving as much. They were more rigid; (they) had more downforce, but it just didn’t feel right to me. So until somebody else started proving to me that it worked, my mind mentally just couldn’t get around it.”
 
That he won three races and finished ninth in points that season might not seem like cause for alarm. Multiple wins and a top-10 finish in points? That’s is cause for celebration in a lot of shops.
 
For Gordon, who had won Cup titles in 1995, ’97 and ’98, it was frustration intensified by uncertainty. Success creates higher standards.
 
Having won seven or more races for five consecutive seasons, including a ’98 effort that saw him tie the modern-day record with 13, Gordon and his team were clearly the class of the field. The bar had been raised. And all of a sudden, the bar seemed out of reach.
 
“It’s not so much confidence — at that point the car doesn’t feel the way I want it to feel,” he said. “So you’re a little frustrated, you’re not competitive, your teammates are running good and then you lose confidence if that happens consistently.”
 
Crew chief Ray Evernham, with whom Gordon had won all three of his titles, had departed before the end of the previous season, and Brian Whitesell stepped in to finish out the year atop the pit box. Robbie Loomis was Gordon’s crew chief when the curtain rose the following year.
 
Fortunately for Gordon and his team, as the year progressed and he became accustomed to the new feel of the car, his results improved. So much so that he finished the season with 10 top-10s in the final 11 races. The end wasn’t in sight after all — at least not yet.
 
The turnaround continued into the ’01 season, and as a result, Gordon clinched his fourth Sprint Cup title, bypassing NASCAR legends, and three-time champions, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough and Darrell Waltrip.
 
It was those struggles that played a large role in his team’s climb back to the top, Gordon said, and in the end made both himself and his team better.
 
“Some guys come into the sport and never get (that confidence),” Gordon said. “Some guys get it and it fades and they never get it back. I’ve been fortunate to where it has had its ups and downs and to me that’s one of the most important things.“
 
A visit to the HMS complex by Virginia Tech head football coach Frank Beamer on Tuesday reinforced the importance of confidence, as well as the importance of loyalty and a belief in one another in a team sport.
 
“To me that’s always huge,” Gordon said. “You’ve got to have smart people that surround you –- they feel like they have to have a talented race car driver — but when you’re tested, go through the tough times, if they don’t really truly believe in you, what you bring to the table, or vice versa, you’re never going to find that confidence that it takes to win.”
 
Winning has become more difficult and perhaps that’s why each victory now is special. Such was the case as the 2012 season came to a close, and found Gordon back in the winner’s circle.
 
To say that it was career win No. 87 –- only two other drivers have won more often — would be to miss the big picture.
 
“To end the season like that, as well as have my kids there, my wife Ingrid, and the team, as hard as they worked and as much as we went through last year, nothing felt better than that,” he said.
 
“You savor those moments, you appreciate those moments, at least I do, more today than I ever have in the past.”