Jeff Gordon has time for another NASCAR championship

Reporting from Daytona Beach, Fla. — 

Jeff Gordon knows he’s running out of time to win a fifth NASCAR championship.

Gordon, the onetime “Boy Wonder” who captured his four titles in NASCAR’s premier series between 1995 and 2001, hasn’t won another since the series became the Sprint Cup Series and adopted the “Chase for the Cup” title playoff format in 2004.

It hasn’t been for lack of trying. Gordon finished second in the point standings in 2007 and third last year, but he’s had to watch as Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson won an unprecedented four consecutive championships from 2006 through last season.

Now, at age 38, Gordon will make another attempt starting Feb. 14 with the season-opening Daytona 500, a race he’s won three times.

“I don’t look at it as [trying for] five, I look at it as one because I’ve never won a Sprint Cup,” Gordon said Thursday during a media day conference ahead of the 500.

“I don’t have a whole lot of [racing] years left in me,” said Gordon, whose wife is expecting their second child. “I don’t know how many exactly that is. But I’m certainly tapering down toward the later side of my career.

“Those opportunities are winding down, and I want to take full advantage of the fact that we’ve got the best organization out there. I’ve got a great team. We’re still capable of winning championships.”

Patrick’s debut

Danica Patrick said that she’ll use her first stock car race as a learning experience but that she won’t be intimidated on the track.

Patrick, the most popular driver in the Izod IndyCar Series, plans to try her hand at NASCAR stock car racing as well.

She’ll start Saturday by driving in a minor-league ARCA Series race here, then enter some NASCAR Nationwide Series races, including Feb. 20 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana.

Asked how aggressive she planned to be Saturday, Patrick said, “You walk this very fine line of being more of a wimp and . . . not doing anything about it to also being too overly aggressive.”

But she said that “if somebody does something to me that I don’t like, you have to expect that you get something in return, and I have fenders now, so that’s pretty exciting,” referring to how stock cars have enclosed bodies unlike the “open wheel” cars in the IndyCar series.

“I plan to respect everybody from the start, and if they give me a reason to not respect them, then I won’t,” she said.

Patrick will be driving a car for JR Motorsports.

Johnson vs. Hornish

It’s seldom that Johnson criticizes another Cup driver by name, but the reigning champion took aim at Sam Hornish Jr.

Hornish, a former IndyCar series champion who migrated to NASCAR two years ago, “hits way too much stuff, including me, at important times of the year,” Johnson said.

“And then he’s never said a word” in terms of explaining what happened, Johnson said.

Johnson partly was referring to a crash last November at Texas Motor Speedway when Hornish struck Johnson’s Chevrolet, leaving Johnson with a 38th-place finish and briefly threatening Johnson’s championship run.

Hornish actually hit Johnson’s car only after being struck himself by another car, but Johnson said, “Either way, wouldn’t you think with what is on the line you would just walk up to a guy [and say,] ‘It wasn’t my fault, somebody hit me’?”

Told of Johnson’s remarks, Hornish said, “I don’t have any problems with Jimmie. . . . I certainly would never try and take him out.”

james.peltz@latimes.com