CUP: Gordon Hunting Reversal Of Fortune

Sprint Cup

CUP: Gordon Hunting Reversal Of Fortune

Jeff Gordon has an average Chase finish of 19.00...

Tom Jensen | Posted October 20, 2011 Talladega, AL

Jeff Gordon came into the Chase for the Sprint Cup like a man hell-bent on finally securing his fifth championship, 10 long years after winning his fourth.

Unfortunately, it’s not to be.

In the five races before the Chase, Gordon had one victory, three top-five and four top-10 finishes, with an average finish of 6.5.

In the five Chase races, Gordon has had just one top-10 finish, a fourth at New Hampshire, and an average finish of 19.00. What was expected to be a triumphant run for the title — or at least a hard challenge — has become a series of misfortune that’s left him 11th in points among 12 Chase drivers, 66 points behind Carl Edwards.

Nevertheless, it’s business as usual for Gordon, crew chief Alan Gustafson and the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports team at Talladega Superspeedway, site of Sunday’s Good Sam Club 500.

“I think our approach doesn't change this weekend versus any other weekend that we go into a race,” said Gordon. “We race to win. We race to do what we need to do to get ourselves in position throughout the race to win.”

Of course, given the major disappointment in the Chase, sometimes that’s easier said than done.

“Right now I think the biggest thing that's probably being preached to our team from Alan and myself and Rick Hendrick is, ‘Hey, let's not get down. Things haven't started the way we wanted them to. We still have a season to finish out, still have races to win. The points are just going to have to fall wherever they fall.’”

Oddly enough, that gives Gordon some freedom he might otherwise not have.

The top drivers in points can’t afford even a single bad finish over the last five races.

“We're kind of on the other side of that where we can take a little bit more risk, we can try some new things out,” said Gordon. “(I’m) more talking about when we get to Martinsville, Texas, Phoenix.”

This weekend, though, don’t expect anything too off the wall from the 24 team.

“Talladega is a little bit different,” Gordon said. “Restrictor plate racing, you got to go with the plan that you put in place and really look at the races we've run previously. There's not a whole lot that we're going to change based on what we've done there in the past.”

Gordon, of course, has enjoyed considerable success over the years at Talladega, with six career victories at the 2.66-mile Alabama superspeedway.

He leads the active drivers in laps led here with 831, the equivalent of nearly four-and-a-half races.

Like the other teams, Gordon does not know exactly what to expect with the new rules package this weekend. “We already decided let's not put too stringent a plan in place now because we know there's some variables we can't control right now. We'll go Friday, get through practice, make a better plan from there.”

But Gordon insisted the big goal remains the same.

“We're going to win,” he said. “That's what we're telling our guys. That's what they know the plan is.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100.

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Tom Jensen

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