Published: May 15, 2008 11:01 pm         

Nascar: Gordon in a slump?

NORMAN, Okla. — To the dismay — or in perhaps more cases the delight — of race fans, 2008 hasn’t been a kind season for Jeff Gordon.

Still, it hasn’t been a total disaster. Gordon moved back into the coveted top 12 in points with last week’s third place effort at Darlington. It says a lot for your stature when 10th place in points and four top-five finishes in 11 starts is considered an off year.

But when you’re a four-time series champion, expectations are higher.

And rest assured, Gordon and his team aren’t happy with where things are.

“It just shows you how competitive things are out there when a team as strong as ours is getting beat out there,” Gordon said to reporters this week in a teleconference previewing this weekend’s NASCAR Sprint Cup All-Star Race. “But we know that we’ve got the ingredients and tools to get it back.”

Gordon was part of Hendrick Motorsports’ dominant duo a year ago, along with series champion Jimmie Johnson. The two won 16 of the 36 races on the season in finishing 1-2 in the points standings.

This year has been a different story. New teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. has been the team’s strongest hand, and Johnson did win at Phoenix last month but also has struggled at times.

But former Hendrick teammate Kyle Busch leads the points race driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, and he and Carl Edwards have six of the series’ 11 victories this year.

Gordon doesn’t shy away from talking about what’s going wrong for his team.

“We’re not up to par this year with the competition, not with Gibbs or Roush,” he said. “The competition’s going to work and they’ve gotten ahead of us. We just don’t have that edge that we had last year and we’re working hard to get it back.”

Since the beginning of the Chase for the Sprint Cup, Gordon hasn’t benefited much from it. Twice he’s been the points leader after the 26-race “regular season,” only to be passed by a hot driver in the final 10 races when the points reset.

This year, Gordon could be the guy that sneaks up on somebody.

“This is what I love about the Chase, this is the flip side to what we’ve had in past years for our team anyway, where the chase has gotten the best of us, this year I hope it actually falls in favor with the type of season we’ve started out with.

“Hopefully we can get ourselves solid in the top 12 and be the team to beat when it really counts which is those last 10 races.”

Gordon’s push to keep coming back will wait a week to start, as this weekend’s All-Star Race is a non-points event. It’s designed to bring excitement to the crowds and has seen some wild racing over the years.

Gordon is tied with Dale Earnhardt for the lead in All-Star victories with three each.

“Those have been all special occasions and events, and to do anything that Dale Earnhardt’s done and be in that same category certainly is even more special,” Gordon said. “We’d love to get another one.”

And with no points on the line, Gordon said he’ll pull out all the stops this weekend to try to get there.

“You know if you come out of there with a wrecked race car or a bad finish, it’s really not going to affect you,” he said.



No network TV

Don’t look for the All-Star Race on FOX this weekend, because it won’t be there.

The race instead is headed for broadcast on SPEED Network (Cox Cable 65). The open race, this year dubbed the Sprint Showdown, starts a few minutes after 6 p.m., with the main event scheduled for about 8.

The top two finishers in the showdown plus one driver who wins a fan vote move on from that race to join the 21 drivers already qualified for the All-Star Race. Anyone who has won a previous All-Star victory or have won races in 2007 or so far in 2008 gets into the main event field.





Christian Potts writes for the Norman (Okla.) Transcript.