Jeff Gordon struggles, finishes 23rd in Brickyard 400

Reporting from Indianapolis — There would be no fifth Brickyard 400 for Jeff Gordon, not even close.

Since the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series began racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1994, Gordon has won the race four times — more than any other driver — including the inaugural event.

But on Sunday, the four-time Cup champion wrestled with an ill-handling car from the moment he started the race in eighth place until he finished 23rd.

“We really struggled,” said Gordon, who drives for Hendrick Motorsports. “We had a good car here at times, but it was just not a good enough one to drive up through there. There just didn’t seem like there was ever a point on the track where we were really good.”

In addition, Gordon had a tire go flat with fewer than 40 laps remaining in the race, forcing him to the pits. “We fixed it the best we could and just brought it home,” he said.

Nonetheless, Gordon remained second in the Cup standings, 184 points behind Kevin Harvick.

Earnhardt’s setback

Gordon’s teammate, Dale Earnhardt Jr., slipped another spot in the Cup standings, to 14th, after a late-race collision with Juan Pablo Montoya left Earnhardt with a 27th-place finish.

Earnhardt wants to be at least 12th in the points after 26 races, because the top 12 qualify for NASCAR’s Chase for the Cup title playoff over the remaining 10 races. But the popular driver is now 93 points behind the 12th-place driver, Clint Bowyer.

“If we keep having this kind of luck, we’re not going to make the Chase,” Earnhardt said. “But we’ll keep trying to make it.”

Indeed, “right at the end, I felt we had a good car” until the wreck, he said. “I was working our way into a top-10 finish there for sure.”

Indy crowd

The poor economy’s ongoing impact on NASCAR was in stark relief at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

NASCAR estimated attendance at 140,000, which, despite being an exceptionally large crowd, was down 40,000 from last year’s race estimate. The speedway itself doesn’t announce attendance.

In addition, the massive 2.5-mile speedway has more than 200,000 grandstand seats, so there were noticeable swaths of empty seats around each of the corners. Many other NASCAR tracks also have struggled with sagging attendance this season.

james.peltz@latimes.com