The Hendrick crew is going the extra mile to stay within the rules, even if it means playing it safe, according to Gordon. (LAT photo) MORE NASCAR PHOTOS » More Photos
CLOSE TO THE VEST When NASCAR slapped the No. 24 and 48 Hendrick Motorsports teams with 100-point penalties for illegal aerodynamic modifications back in June at Infineon Raceway, the message was received loud and clear, according to Jeff Gordon.
"I will be honest with you, right now, if we don't run as good as some other guys, it is because we are being conservative. We aren't pushing the limits because we know what the outcome can be," Gordon said at Kansas Speedway, site of Sunday's LifeLock 400 NASCAR Nextel Cup race. "We are making sure we go through inspection, we meet all the cold templates and every other thing that they have on the new car. We are doing everything we can to make sure that is the case going in to the race and that is the case coming out of the race. We might falter, too, but we are playing more on the conservative side, we might give up a few positions on the race track because of that, but we have been hit with it and we learned our lesson."
Gordon said he thought that other teams would be erring to the side of caution, too, after seeing Carl Edwards and the Roush Fenway Racing team spanked with a 25-point fine for being too in post-race inspection last Sunday at Dover. "We are playing it conservative, I would think that is going to be case with the No. 99 (Edwards) now," Gordon said.
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series fans can watch Ron Hornaday, Jr. defend his Championship in High Definition at Daytona on SPEED. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images) » More Photos
CLOSE TO THE VEST, PART DEUX Speaking of not taking risks, Tony Stewart admitted that the only reason he won at Kansas last year was that he was not in the field for the Chase for the Nextel Cup. Because he was outside the Chase, Stewart chose not to pit for gas late in the race when many Chase participants did. Instead, Stewart stayed on track and won, running out of gas on the last lap and coasting to victory.
If the situation repeats itself on Sunday, the strategy will be very different this time, Stewart said. "We wouldn't have been able to take the gamble that we took last year if we were running for points," said the two-time series champion. "The risk versus reward wouldn't have been an equal value. In a situation like that where if it pays off; we gain six spots. If it doesn't pay off, we lose 35 spots. But for us it was about winning the races, not having to worry about the points. But right now, every point and every position counts."
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R-E-S-P-E-C-T Elliott Sadler said he knows what separated drivers of the prior generation from the youngsters coming into the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series lately. And he spelled it R-E-S-P-E-C-T. The older generation had it, Sadler said, the younger generation not so much. "You know Dale Earnhardt and Ricky Rudd to name a few are old school racers. If you hit them they are going to hit you," said the Virginia native. "So, you always were very careful around certain guys and if you slipped up and got into them a little bit, well they are probably going to come back and hit you too. Just good old school guys like that.
"But if you paid them respect and you raced them like you should then you would get that in return. You see a lot of that in this sport – probably more than you guys recognize," he said. "How you race somebody is how you get raced. Some guys that come in now, some of these young guys are idiots and just race three and four wide and bump you and move you around, well that's how they get raced by everybody else too, so you can make your learning curve hard or you can make it easy."
NO MO' MO' Kurt Busch, the 2004 NASCAR Nextel Cup champion, would like to see the word "momentum" banished, because he feels like it has no real value in the context of the current Cup racing climate. "I can't wait until we find a new word to use. The momentum thing is actually starting to bug me, but you go out there and you race every week like there is a fresh week ahead of you and if you do well then that is great," said Busch. "The next week you could fall off that soap box just as quick."
Part of the problem, he said, is that there are two different cars being raced in the Nextel Cup Series this year. "The way that the Car of Tomorrow races and then the downforce cars are, you just can't carry success from the Car of Tomorrow into your downforce setup, so it's all new," said Busch. "It's fresh each and every week. The way that we've been running out on the racetrack it's been great. We've had a third place car at New Hampshire, we were running third at Dover with 15 laps to go and we got a flat tire. So, a couple quick things took us down to 11th in points instead of the top three. You could say that our momentum has fizzled or we're here at a downforce track ready to go."
