It didn’t take many laps for Jeff Gordon to realize they had a car capable of winning the race on Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
He started eighth but while others struggled to pass at IIMS, Gordon seemed to have no problem.
He ran majority of the race in the top five and in fact the only time he was outside the top five was as the laps wound down and fuel strategy came into play.
Even then Gordon with 20 laps to go drove from 16th to second and came up just short of eventual winner Paul Menard.
Gordon was happy with his second place finish at a track where admittedly they have struggled since his last win in 2004.
Sunday was his best chance at winning at IMS since 2004 and he and his team right now are heading in the right direction.
"I guess I'm happy because we ran so good," Gordon said. "This is a tough place. There's no coincidence that teams that have won here in the past several times have gone on to win the championship because it shows who has the complete package. I think that we showed we got a great package.
This is coming after a rough start to the season for this team. Even though they won at Phoenix the team really struggled on intermediate tracks and superspeedway tracks like IMS.
Since there fourth place finish at Kansas in June, Gordon and his team have arguably been the hottest team on the circuit during this time.
His worse finish was a 17th at Michigan but he has since earned six top 10 finishes including a win at Pocono in June.
Two weeks ago at New Hampshire, Gordon had one of the best cars on track. Alternator issues forced them to switch batteries and really cost them a shot at the win.
Still Gordon left New Hampshire with more positives than anything.
"From a performance standpoint I think today we showed everybody what we're capable of doing; and for that I'm very excited. I know the guys feel really bad about the issues that we had, but it was a great lesson for us to go through this and understand how to deal with it and how we reacted to it;
Gordon and his team have been finally putting together the complete effort and Gordon points to improved communication with his crew chief, Alan Gustafson.
Early on this season marred by inconsistency many questioned whether Gordon could be a legitimate threat for the title this season.
Gordon has heard the rumblings from media and fans about how he has ran the last couple seasons. Results not Gordon-like but still the fire has always been there but a rejuvenated Gordon came into this season with the expectation to contend for the title.
While Gordon and his team have been on a roll in the last two month their confidence level has been on the rise.
Gordon said a few months back that he didn’t want to just get into the Chase. He wanted to contend for the title and run up front.
He and his team have proven the last two months that they are getting into title form. Now the key will be for them to continue this in the final 10 races.
Still there is a lot of optimism for Gordon as arguably this is shaping up into one of his best seasons in a while.
Gordon summed it up quite well following his drive through the field after the race on the radio "Not bad for an old man!"
No, Gordon not bad at all.
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