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Monday, Oct. 29, 2007

Gordon battles through long, difficult day

It's time to face the facts. It may require some sweetener to take some of the bitterness out of the taste, but it can't be avoided.

Hendrick Motorsports, especially the half of the team that works out of the shop housing cars driven by Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, is just good.

Not even flashes of adversity faze these two teams.

As the Pep Boys Auto 500 raced into the late afternoon at Atlanta Motor Speedway, it was shaping up to be a day that would have been a prime opportunity for either team to fold. Johnson was hanging around the top 10, in line for a decent, but not spectacular finish. Gordon was dealt a far tougher hand. A mid-race adjustment on pit road caused his car's handling to plummet quicker than a bad stock.

A top-five car in the race's early stages, Gordon turned into an also-ran, 21st. Yep, the all-powerful Gordon was driving like mad to get into the top 20. If there was ever a time for Gordon and his team to panic and rip itself apart from the inside out, this was it.

"I can promise you that neither one of us give up. That's been instilled in us from day one," said Chad Knaus, Johnson's crew chief. "We just always try to look for the upside potential. The day that we stop doing that will be the day that things like what happened (Sunday) keeps on happening."

Gordon, and more importantly, his crew chief Steve Letarte, didn't panic. They did what Hendrick usually does - find a way to get it done. By the time that all the tire smoke cleared, Gordon was seventh. Sure, he leads Johnson by just nine points after entering the day with a 53-point advantage, but the day could have been worse ... a lot worse.

Having a day like Sunday isn't one that Gordon would normally be pleased with. When a driver is racing for a title, riding around in the 20s won't get it done. At the same time, races like Sunday's are ones that win championships.

Sometimes, it's not what a team is able to do on the great days that earns championships, but what is done on days that aren't so great.

Put it this way, if Gordon and his now-tiny points lead make it through these next three races, Sunday could very easily be the day when Gordon won, not lost, the championship.

"To be able to fight back and finish seventh, it was still a great day for us going forward," Gordon said.

It still goes back to what Rhine's Jason Jones, a tire carrier for another Hendrick car, the No. 5 driven by Kyle Busch, once told me - that team owner Rick Hendrick gives his teams all that they need to excel and that with those type of resources, there is no reason to not be successful.

After all, there is a very good reason that Dale Earnhardt Jr. had the pick of the litter when he chose which team to race for. He chose Hendrick, the best of the bunch.

It's no secret that plenty of folks dislike Gordon and Johnson. When either get introduced before a race, a good heap of boos, jeers and other not very nice things are yelled at them. There's even a Web site dedicated to hating Gordon.

"I think it's easy to criticize from the outside, 'Oh they are spending the most money or they are buying this championship,' " Gordon said. "You can't buy a championship in this thing. There are so many guys out there spending a lot of money and hiring the best people and trying to beat us."

Gordon and Johnson are hated for a good reason - they win and the favorite drivers of a lot other fans don't.

After days like Sunday, it's not too hard to figure out why Earnhardt is going to be a teammate of Johnson, Gordon and Casey Mears.