SPARTA, Kentucky – Jeff Gordon’s bid to win at every track on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series tour came up short Saturday night at Kentucky Speedway with a seventh place finish in the Quaker State 400.
In a race that debuted the new aerodynamic package in an effort to improve passing, Gordon started third, but struggled to find the ideal setup that allowed the Hendrick Motorsports (HMS) Chevrolet to contend for his first win of the season.
“As usual in Kentucky it is never easy,” said Gordon. “The team did a really good job. We had to fight through a few handling issues and some restarts and pit road and a bunch of things, but there at the end everything kind of came together.”
In five races at Kentucky, Gordon has never finished outside the top-10 dating back to 2011.
“We got the car working really well, got a couple of good restarts and a good pit stop. It was a solid evening. It wasn’t a winning evening, but I’m still real proud of the effort.”
Still, with his 10th top-10 finish of the season, Gordon was the lead HMS driver, finishing ahead of Jimmie Johnson (ninth), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (21st) and Kasey Kahne (27th).
On a night where most of his peers applauded the new rules package, Gordon still seemed skeptical, vouching the tire compound wasn’t ideally fit for the race track.
“It’s hard to gauge at this place,” added Gordon. “It is such a challenging racetrack already. Basically the cars just drove really bad right from the beginning and just always drove bad around all the cars. It didn’t change a whole lot when you are around other cars. I don’t know. I think we have to give it a try somewhere… we’ve got to get the right tires on it. This is not the right tire. “
“It is still way too hard. It doesn’t have near enough grip at the beginning of a run. It doesn’t really fall off. The only way you can make a low downforce package work is to have the proper tire on there. I’m glad we tried it, did a little more work, I’m looking forward to trying it again. I’m looking forward to trying what we are going to have at Indy too.”
The ability to win a race at every track on the circuit would have been a hell of an accomplishment, but now the concentration shifts on getting the 43-year-old driver into the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
Aiming for his fifth championship, Gordon’s desire to go out on top has never been more evident. And while, the No. 24 team has seen a shift in their on-track consistency, there’s still work to be done. Maybe the new package helped, maybe it didn’t, but Gordon is on a mission in the second-half.
While some “magic” may be necessary for Gordon to pick off the win in the 301-lap race next weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, the Brickyard 400 is two weeks on the horizon, where the Pittsboro, Indiana native is the defending champion and seeks an unprecedented sixth win at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01
