LOOKING IN ON: MOTOR SPORTS

Thursday, July 27, 2006 | 7:40 a.m.

Robby Gordon hasn't had a weekend off since Easter and won't have another one until the end of November, but his plans for this week's break in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series schedule don't include fishing or lounging around a pool.

Gordon, an owner-driver in the Cup Series, will spend his third and final off weekend of the season slinging his Chevrolet off-road truck around a 1.5-mile temporary desert course at the dirt track at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

At the request of Red Bull, which sponsors his off-road truck, Gordon will return to his desert-racing roots and compete in the SCORE Las Vegas Terrible's Cup II stadium-style race Friday and Saturday nights. Although the decision to race in Las Vegas was based on a sponsor's request, Gordon said it didn't take a lot of arm-twisting.

"Red Bull wanted us to be part of the off-road event here in Vegas. They're doing a bunch of stuff around the event," Gordon said. "We love to play in the dirt. It's always a lot of fun to come out there and race the off-road guys.

"This event is different than what we normally do with our trucks. My truck is built more for Baja and the rough deserts of (Nevada) compared to a short little stadium race like we're going to have this weekend, but I think it'll be a lot of fun."

Gordon missed the inaugural Terrible's Cup, which drew an impressive crowd of about 13,000 for two nights of racing . But he said he has seen the course map and was aware of last year's event and said he was looking forward to the race.

"I haven't done a stadium race in years - since we used to race out there at Sam Boyd (Stadium)," Gordon said of his days in the now-defunct Mickey Thompson Stadium Series in the late 1980s and early '90s. "I drove for Toyota, and we won a Sam Boyd event. I think I won and then got in trouble because I turned Walker Evans sideways through the whole event."

Gordon, who won the 1996 SCORE Trophy Truck season championship and still competes in both the Baja 500 and Baja 1000, had a hand in last year's inaugural event even though he did not race here. Marty Coyne scored his first Trophy Truck victory in last year's Terrible's Cup in a truck built by Gordon's off-road racing operation.

Gordon said he was more willing to race in Las Vegas this weekend in light of the recent string of solid runs his second-year Cup team has put together. Gordon is coming off a 13th-place finish at Pennsylvania's Pocono Raceway - his fourth top-20 effort in a row.

"We've had some good runs that have brought us to 27th in the points - which doesn't sound very exciting, but it's just so competitive out here," he said. "There are 20 guys that can win any given Sunday, and we're getting closer to (being) one of those guys who can win any given Sunday."

Also noted

Career victories for John Force at Infineon Raceway, site of this weekend's Fram-Autolite NHRA Nationals

Points separating the top six drivers in the Indy Racing League standings after 10 of 14 races

"If you hold that guy up he gets so upset and then he can wreck two guys and give you the finger. That's spectacularly self-centered. I can't imagine being like that."

Carl Edwards

on his run-in with Tony Stewart during last weekend's NASCAR Nextel Cup race at Pocono Raceway. Stewart later apologized and took blame for the incident.