Tuesday, March 8, 2005 | 9:33 a.m.
If there is such a thing as a moral victory in NASCAR Nextel Cup racing, Robby Gordon earned one two weeks ago at California Speedway.
Gordon, in his second stint as an owner/driver in NASCAR's premier series, failed to start the Daytona 500 last month because of NASCAR's new rule that guaranteed the top 35 cars, based on the previous year's owner points, a spot in the starting field. Because Gordon drove for Richard Childress Racing the previous year, he had no owner points and was sent home despite finishing a respectable seventh in his 150-mile qualifying race.
The following week, Gordon qualified his No. 7 Harrah's Chevrolet 25th at Fontana -- not Gordon's idea of an outstanding effort, but he managed to outqualify Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and the three Childress cars. Gordon ran mid-pack for much of the first half of the race before an engine failure ended his day and relegated him to a 35th-place finish.
"It made me feel really good because in qualifying ... we were only two-tenths (of a second) out of the top 10, which I was pretty happy about," Gordon said. "If we would have made any mistakes in qualifying, we'd be loading our stuff up and heading home again. It was very important for us to have a good, solid effort and get ourselves in the field.
"(In) the race, we stayed in the top 25 for a long time, until we got ourselves in a position to get lapped. At least I got a start off to the beginning of the year thinking those types of things will make us a better race team and make us more competitive throughout the season."
Such is the life of an owner/driver in the highly competitive world of NASCAR racing.
"When you go race at the Nextel Cup level, you're racing against the best teams in motor sports," Gordon said. "Obviously, when you can run in the top 25, you can't be very happy about that but, you know, it's part of the game. You just have to keep building on it week in and week out and not get down on it because it will come full circle."
As he prepared for Sunday's UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Gordon was reminded of his last trip to Las Vegas as a car owner. In 2000, Gordon posted his best non-road-course result of the year when he finished 13th on the 1.5-mile oval.
"Well, like Vegas last time, we were fairly new," Gordon said. "At the first two races, I guess you could say we struggled, like we did this go-round. But I think we've got a good race team, we've got great sponsors. That's a big difference from where we were in 2000; we didn't have full funding. We were always struggling from week in, week out to find sponsorship.
In addition to having Las Vegas-based Harrah's Entertainment Inc. as a primary sponsor for 14 races this season, Gordon has backing from Fruit of the Loom and Jim Beam bourbon.
"Right now, we don't have any primary locations (for sponsorship) available on our car for 2005," Gordon said.
It also is no coincidence that Gordon is campaigning the No. 7 car this season. The number at one time belonged to the late Alan Kulwicki -- the last owner/driver to win a NASCAR Cup championship.
"I actually have a picture of Alan standing next to his No. 7 car at Daytona on my desk as a reminder that if you work hard enough, and do things right, you can win as an owner/driver," Gordon said. "Running car No. 7 on our Cup car is as much a tribute to what Alan was able to accomplish as it is an inspiration for what we hope to achieve.
"Alan Kulwicki did things right. I plan to be in this sport as a driver for a long time -- and as an owner beyond that. The stories of how hard Alan, Paul Andrews (Kulwicki's crew chief) and his team worked are legendary, and if we keep our heads down, follow our dreams and keep trying to reach our goals, we may just take No. 7 back to New York as a NASCAR Nextel Cup champion."
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