NASCAR Cup

Phoenix: Jeff Gordon preview

EAST COAST TEST COULD LEAD TO STRONG DESERT RUN FOR GORDON AVONDALE, Ariz. (April 18, 2006) -- Unable to test at Phoenix International Raceway in advance of this Saturday night's Subway Fresh 500, Jeff Gordon and Team DuPont prepared for this ...

Published: Apr 19, 2006, 10:12 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

EAST COAST TEST COULD LEAD TO STRONG DESERT RUN FOR GORDON

AVONDALE, Ariz. (April 18, 2006) -- Unable to test at Phoenix International Raceway in advance of this Saturday night's Subway Fresh 500, Jeff Gordon and Team DuPont prepared for this race nearly 2,300 miles away at Richmond International Raceway. At the beginning of this season, NASCAR instituted a rule that limits tests where NASCAR NEXTEL Cup races are held.

The teams are permitted to test at only Richmond, Daytona International Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Lowe's Motor Speedway, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Homestead-Miami Speedway on specific dates. Faced with this obstacle, the No. 24 team decided to split their focus during last week's test at Richmond. "We concentrated specifically on Richmond for only about 40 percent of that test," crew chief Steve Letarte said. "The remaining 60 percent was spent on generic' testing where we were gathering data that relates to Phoenix, New Hampshire International Speedway or other tracks." Gordon, a four-time champion and 73-time winner in NASCAR's premier series, believes the benefits of the short track test will carry over into other areas of their racing program. "That was a very valuable test," said Gordon. "It's amazing that we now test at Richmond and not only learn about that track, but we're actually applying things we learn there to other tracks.

"Because of the technology that we have and the direction that we're going with the setups these days, you're able to learn a lot from every single track that you visit. Our tests are so limited these days that we have to take full advantage of them." Although Gordon has posted six top-fives and 11 top-10's in 14 starts at PIR, he has yet to post a victory at the relatively flat Arizona track. After failing to make the "Chase for the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup" in 2005, Gordon wants to begin building momentum so that does not occur again this year.

"We recognize we have to walk before we can run," said Gordon, who currently sits eighth in the point standings. "We've had some pretty good runs this year -- especially on the short tracks. And Phoenix is somewhat of a short track in our opinion. "We ran pretty well here last year and finished third. We're going to try to build on that and be a little bit better this weekend. We're looking to build some momentum, put a string of top fives together and get to the Winner's Circle."

-hm-

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Phoenix: Dale Jarrett preview

Next article Michael Waltrip Racing 2007 preparations

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Why Oscar Piastri has struggled to show his best with this year's McLaren MCL40

Formula 1

Why Oscar Piastri has struggled to show his best with this year's McLaren MCL40

FIA ratifies key 2027 WRC sporting regulations

WRC

WRC WRC 29 min

FIA ratifies key 2027 WRC sporting regulations

Toprak Razgatlioglu to miss the rest MotoGP season due to shoulder injury

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP

Australian GP

1 h

Toprak Razgatlioglu to miss the rest MotoGP season due to shoulder injury

MotoGP teams told Qatar Grand Prix expected to go ahead

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP

Qatar GP

1 h

MotoGP teams told Qatar Grand Prix expected to go ahead

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts