Robby Gordon Likes Daytona Chances

Speculation as to the winner of Sunday’s Daytona 500 generally centers on Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Then come Dale Jarrett, Kevin Harvick and Ricky Rudd.

Usually overlooked is the winner of the last Winston Cup points race, Robby Gordon.

“I think we can win it, for sure,” Gordon said Wednesday before climbing in his Richard Childress-owned No. 31 Chevrolet for the final practice before today’s Gatorade Twin 125 qualifying races at Daytona International Speedway.

He will start in the second row of the second of the two races, right behind Harvick, a teammate.

Gordon is from Orange, Harvick from Bakersfield. Furthering the California connection is El Cajon’s Jimmie Johnson, pole-sitter for Sunday’s race as well as the first Twin 125.

It is easy to overlook Gordon, a talented driver who never seems to live up to his potential and doesn’t seem to know if he wants to be a Winston Cup driver or an Indy car driver.

If he were a cat, he’d already have used up his nine lives.

When he was dropped by the Morgan-McClure team last year after only five races, it looked as if Gordon’s NASCAR career was finished. After all, he had runs with owners Junie Donlavey, Robert Yates, Kranefuss-Haas, Buz McCall and a full season with Felix Sabates. He even tried owning his own team with Mike Held. But he never caught on, usually because he kept drifting back to Indy cars.

Gordon caught the eye of Childress, who runs one of the highest profile and best-financed teams in racing, at the Indianapolis 500 last year. Gordon was driving for A.J. Foyt in a car Childress co-owned. He qualified third and led 22 laps before his engine went sour about Lap 75.

“I’d heard a lot of tales about Robby and his troubles, but he wasn’t anything like I’d been told,” said Childress, who signed a young Dale Earnhardt in 1981 and helped guide him to six of his seven Winston Cup championships. “Maybe he’s a little older and has a different attitude. No one ever doubted his tremendous talent. What I saw that I liked was the way he worked with A.J.”

Gordon got his chance with Childress’ Cup team when Mike Skinner injured his knee and decided to have season-ending surgery last September.

“Richard and I started our dialogue in May at Indy after I’d been released from the No. 4 [Morgan-McClure] car and we kept in touch,” Gordon said. “I drove a couple of races for Jim Smith in the meantime and almost won the Sears Point race.”

In July, Childress put the still-unemployed Gordon in his Busch Series car for a road course race at Watkins Glen, N.Y., and was impressed with his fifth-place finish.

“When Skinner got hurt, Richard called me and here I am,” Gordon said.

In 10 races with Childress last season, Gordon almost won at Watkins Glen, before a freak fire sidelined him while leading, and won his first Winston Cup race in the season-finale at New Hampshire International Speedway in a late-race battle with series champion Jeff Gordon. The Gordons are not related.

On lap 285 of the 300-lap race, Robby clipped the rear of Jeff’s Chevrolet, a nudge that enabled Robby to take the lead. A lap later, under caution, the usually unflappable Jeff repaid the favor and was penalized a lap, enabling Robby to pull away and win.

“I was really surprised at Jeff,” Childress said. “Someone apparently slowed in front of him and when Jeff checked up, Robby bumped him. It wasn’t anything that doesn’t happen all the time.”

Robby Gordon called it a “heat of the moment thing,” and insists that he and the four-time champion have no on-going feud.

“The guys who cover NASCAR love to talk about feuds, but the truth is there is very little of that that lasts more than a day or two,” Robby Gordon said. “If you had feuds with these guys, you’d never get anything done on the racetrack.”

Gordon qualified sixth fastest for the 500 with a speed of 184.362 mph, but his starting position Sunday will be determined by where he finishes in today’s 125-mile sprint.

“I think we’re in great position to win the 500, but before that we’re going for the win in the 125. Kevin and I have been drafting together, working on our fine tuning and in practice I’ve been able to get around [Jeff] Gordon and Stewart so I know the race car is ready.”

Gordon kept himself sharp during the off-season with two quite different events, a Race of Champions rally in the Canary Islands in December and the Rolex 24 Hour Race here two weeks ago.

“The rally was great fun, kind of like the old Baja 1000 runs,” he said. “It was my first time at it, I drove a SEAT Cordoba and broke the track record on my second lap. I think I would have won but I flipped and the car caught fire.

“I want to go back and give it a shot next year. I think I’d have really enjoyed being a rally driver if I’d tried it earlier. I just love racing anything. That’s why I race crazy events like the rally and the 24 Hour. In the Rolex, I drove about eight hours, mostly at night.

“It seemed strange, driving a sophisticated sports car around Daytona and then climbing into a big, old Winston Cup car.”

That big, old Winston Cup car may be his salvation. For someone who won the Baja 1000 driving solo when he was 20, who won the first Sports Car Club of America Trans-Am he ever entered in 1992 at Long Beach, who won PPG Cup Indy Car races at Phoenix and Detroit in 1995, who won his first IROC race at Charlotte in 1997, who won his first Winston Cup pole at Atlanta in 1997 and came within a lap of winning the 1999 Indianapolis 500 before running out of fuel, Robby Gordon has had a largely unfulfilled career.

“I’ve heard before that this was my last chance,” he said. “I heard it when I went with Felix [Sabates], I heard it when Mike [Held] and I started our own team, and I heard it last year when I started with Morgan-McClure, so it’s nothing new.

“What is new is that I don’t want to screw things up again. It helps that we won our first race and we have confidence in each other, Richard and myself.

“Our objectives are to win Thursday, win Sunday and run consistently all season so we can have a shot at the Winston Cup championship.”