Gordon Plays Catch-Up

Is Jeff Gordon slowing, or have his rivals caught up to him?

Gordon, the one-time wonder boy of NASCAR with four Winston/Nextel Cup championships and 73 victories, is struggling again this year to make the season-ending chase that would put him in the hunt for a fifth title.

Only the top 10 drivers in points after 26 races get to compete for the Nextel Cup during the final 10. Gordon missed the chase in 2005, and this year he’s 11th in the points -- and without a victory -- as he prepares for Sunday’s Dodge/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway here.

“My biggest thing is, I don’t want to just be in the chase,” Gordon told reporters last week. “I mean, yes, that’s important, but I want to be in the chase because we’re a threat for the championship.”

Gordon, driver of the familiar No. 24 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, has four top-five finishes in the first 15 races this year.

But it’s a subpar showing by Gordon’s standards. He hasn’t won since last October at Martinsville, Va., and he’s 499 points behind series leader and teammate Jimmie Johnson. Even rookie Denny Hamlin, in eighth, is higher in the points this year than Gordon.

Adding near injury to insult, Gordon also took a severe hit two weeks ago when his car’s brakes failed and he slammed into the wall at Pocono Raceway. Last week, at Michigan International Speedway, he started on the front row but finished eighth.

“Eighth, hey, the way things have been going for us right now, I’m happy with eighth,” he said.

But if there’s a track where Gordon is a favorite to improve his fortunes with his first victory of the year, it’s the twisting, hillside Infineon road course.

Gordon, 34, is the only driver to have won four Cup races on the 1.99-mile circuit here -- in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2004.

He also holds the record for the most pole positions at Infineon with five, including last year’s; has led the most laps with 376, and today is being inducted into Infineon Raceway’s Walk of Fame.

“We’re definitely excited about coming out to Sonoma,” Gordon said. “This weekend gives us the opportunity to get some points back.”

Sonoma, and California generally, also are friendly surroundings for Gordon. He grew up in Vallejo, just southeast of the wine country here, and is now producing his own wines, the Jeff Gordon Collection, with the help of the August Briggs Winery in Calistoga. On the track, Gordon -- who has won more than $77 million in 14 years of Cup racing -- also is trying to regain the consistency that made him such a feared driver in the past.

He won four races last year but lacked consistency, and his crew chief, Robbie Loomis, was replaced by Steve Letarte.

Gordon could build momentum in the coming weeks. After Sonoma, the series moves to the Daytona International Speedway, where he has won six times. In August, it stops at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and in Watkins Glen, N.Y., and Gordon has four victories at each track.

“All you can do is just fight hard every weekend and get the most out of your race car and your team, and if you do your job and it’s meant to happen, then it will,” he said.

“I also know that I’m getting older and there’s going to be a time when the success isn’t going to be there as much as it was at one time.

“I don’t want to prepare myself for that because I don’t think I’m there yet, but that’s just unfortunately the way things have gone for us this year.”

Last Laps

* David Gilliland of Riverside, who stunned the NASCAR world last week by winning the Busch Series race at Kentucky Speedway in only his seventh Busch start, will try to qualify for Sunday’s Nextel Cup race here. It would be his first race in NASCAR’s premier series.

* NASCAR’s AutoZone West Series, part of its Grand National Division, also is returning to Infineon Raceway for the first time in seven years.

Brian Vickers and Ken Schrader are among the Nextel Cup drivers scheduled to join the series’ regular field in the race Saturday. When the division last competed here in October 1998, the track was known as Sears Point Raceway and the winner was Bakersfield’s Kevin Harvick, now a leading Cup driver as well.

* After finishing 12th at Santa Maria Speedway last week, Damion Gardner holds only a three-point lead over Cory Kruseman as the USAC/CRA sprint cars return to Perris Auto Speedway on Saturday night. Kruseman won the Santa Maria race, his third win of the season.

* Ventura Raceway will feature sprint cars, senior sprints, pony stocks and IMCA modifieds Saturday, with Troy Rutherford of Ojai and Bruce Douglass of Ventura hoping to repeat as winners in the sprint and senior sprint classes, respectively.

* Kenton Gray of La Verne is scheduled to make a qualifying attempt for Saturday’s super late-model race at Irwindale Speedway, driving a Ford Taurus sponsored by Bridge Publications, which publishes Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s bestseller “Dianetics.” The track’s program also includes super trucks and a figure-8 race with television personality Jesse James.

* California Speedway’s relocated drag strip is scheduled to open this weekend for the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing series. The strip, formerly on the south side of the Fontana track behind the front-stretch grandstands, is now on the north side behind Turn 2 and has been given a new racing surface.