Filed under: Jeff Gordon, Sprint Cup, Hendrick Motorsports
LOOKING AHEAD: Seven races into the 2009 season, Jeff Gordon crossed the finish line first at Texas Motor Speedway for his first win of 2009. Obviously, a Jeff Gordon win isn’t what we’d call a landmark occasion in NASCAR — he does have 82 checkered flags to his name — but, for heaven sakes, Jeff Gordon was winning at Texas.
Gordon and Texas Motor Speedway simply had not gotten along, meaning a win for Gordon at the 1.5-miler looked to be a point in the 2009 season where his competition and fans could look to and identify as the true turning point for Gordon’s ascent to a fifth NASCAR Sprint Cup title.
As we now know, a team from the Hendrick Motorsports shop did take the the title, but it wasn’t Gordon. And so it was, another year, another missed chance at capturing the fifth title that has eluded Gordon since his last in 2001.
Surprisingly, Gordon never found victory lane again in 2009 and, as a result, the dry spell in the win column is even a little more pressing than most would think. The Texas victory was Gordon’s only points-race triumph since Charlotte in the fall of 2007 — meaning he’s batting 1 for 77 in that period.
Thanks to NASCAR’s point system — a format Gordon has yet to be crowned champion under — such a dry spell has hurt the four-time series champion more than most realize. In the same period Jimmie Johnson, Gordon’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate and the only champion NASCAR fans have seen in awhile, has won a total of 18 times. Of course, NASCAR’s point system doles out 10 bonus points in the Chase for each race a driver wins in the ‘regular’ season — giving Johnson a nice advantage heading towards the title dash.
Going into 2010, should Gordon want to win that 5th title and distinguish himself, for a season at least, from his teammate Johnson as the current driver with the most championships, the goals for the No. 24 crew boil down to one thing: win, and win often.
Consistency hasn’t been a problem for Gordon in the past few seasons — he’s only got two Top-10s less than Johnson in the span from the fall 2007 Charlotte race until today — but finding victory lane has.
A big part of that this season will be crew chief Steve Letarte, who will need to step up his game in making the correct adjustments on Gordon’s car during a race. A slow start for Gordon will put Letarte on the hot seat in the minds of the Evernham-obsessed fans, despite Gordon’s continued support of Letarte’s leadership and problem-solving style.
Those fans, of course, should take note that Gordon — under Letarte’s tutelage — set NASCAR’s single season modern era record for Top-10s in 2007.
Still, Gordon needs to win, and win lots for him to be a factor in the Chase. Even if he makes the final 10 race stretch as a qualified championship contender — actually, there’s no reason to doubt he won’t — it’ll be easy to tell before the green flag at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in September if Gordon is a championship threat based on one thing: wins.
2009 STATISTICS:
Best Finish - 1st, Texas
Worst Finish - 37th, Talladega & Watkins Glen
Top-5s - 16
Top-10s - 25
Total Laps Led - 827
Percent of Laps Completed - 99.1
LOOKING AHEAD: Kurt Busch, after walking an occasionally tumultuous road in his switch from Roush-Fenway Racing to Penske, is back in championship form — if statistics tell us anything.
THE SEASON: Anyone contemplating the story of 
