Five questions with NASCAR's Jeff Gordon

It’s something Jeff Gordon has been through before. In a career spanning 16 fulltime seasons, Gordon has come out on the winning end of NASCAR title fights four times.

This year with two races remaining in the season Gordon finds himself in third, 112 points behind his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson.

The lead isn’t insurmountable, but Gordon knows in order to win a fifth championship he’ll have to depend on more of the same bad luck that bit Johnson last week at Texas.

Gordon took time out this past weekend to meet with the media and talked about such diverse subjects as the Chase and why he doesn’t race in the Nationwide Series.

Q. When you look at the 48, the relationship you and Jimmie have, do you see some similarities between what you and Ray (former crew chief Ray Evernham) had?

Well, I see the similarities how well they click, you know, how well the team performs. No doubt about that. You know, that's what it takes to be successful. You've got to be on the same page in how you drive the car versus how the car is set up, how you communicate and give information back about what the car is doing. Those guys are obviously the best out here in this garage right now. Their results speak for themselves. The roll they've been on certainly reminds me of the roll we were on with the DuPont Chevrolet back in the mid to late '90s. Ray played a huge role in that. How we got along and worked together played a huge role in that, as well. Very similar to what you have with Jimmie and Chad.

Q. If you don't win the championship this year, would you consider this to be one of your best two or three years in which you didn't win the championship?

Definitely. You know, I mean, we've had a great year all season long. We've been consistent and solid and strong. We're not as strong as we need to be to win the championship, but we're still, you know, very happy with how we've been able to improve the results from last season.

I mean, I think that we're not as close to the 48 as we were in '07 when we battled with them for the championship, or with Kurt in '04. Other than that, I'd say this has definitely been our best effort.

Q. As somebody that has won four championships, how do the meanings change as you win more? When you get to three or four, how do the meanings change?

To me the fourth meant so much because we had so many changes within the team. When Ray went off to do his team, we had to replace him, you know, that was a big challenge for us and for me personally. To be able to come back from all of that and win with Robbie Loomis in 2001, I think that was one of my biggest accomplishments that I've had in this sport. I feel like it certainly earned me a lot more respect.

So I look back on the fourth one as being the sweetest one because of that. But they do all seem to get better for different reasons. I think, especially this season for Jimmie, going for four in a row, something that's never been done before, I think that doesn't get done very often in this sport, to do something that has never been done before. That I'm sure would make this one sweeter than all the rest for him.

Q. If you look at what Jimmie has done, he doesn't run Nationwide races, he doesn't have an ownership stake in a national series team, is it too much of a leap saying not having all that other stuff going on is a reason he's been able to stay on top?

I've been saying that for years. Everybody is, How come you don't run the Nationwide Series? I think that's a smart move. I think, especially these days, the cars being so different, it doesn't make any sense.

Listen, the bottom-line, you want to know why those guys are running Nationwide races? For money. They're wanting extra money. The sponsors are there supporting the car owners to run the series. Those guys are able to make extra money. That's why they run it. Of course, somebody like Kyle, you know, has the opportunity to go win a championship, or Carl, then, hey, why not do that, too? But the Cup drivers that are over there, that's why they're doing it.

So, you know, Jimmie is a well-paid driver. I think that he sees the benefits of not being over there. I don't know if he looked at the way I did it or not. He still runs sometimes. But, again, these days those cars are so much different. Maybe next year when they go to the new car, whenever they go to the new car, if the cars are more similar, maybe you'll see more guys, it benefiting them on Sunday.

Q. When you're looking at 2010, what are you working on mentally as far as the team? What do you want to improve on?

I think we focused a lot on our mile-and-a-half program this year. We definitely improved that. I think we can just make some small tweaks there. But I think it's the short tracks now that we got to go back after and the road courses.

We really haven't performed as well on the short tracks. We'll look at these final 10 races, New Hampshire I felt like we struggled, and we shouldn't have. That's one of our best tracks. Phoenix coming up is a tough track for us.

We're hoping we improve this time around. But we're certainly going to learn all that we can this time around to make sure that we're good next season.

It's all about being good in the final 10. But we got to win to get some bonus points to position ourselves going into it all when it starts.