The rebirth of Jeff Gordon

No longer are a pair of four-time NASCAR Cup champions forced to co-exist at Hendrick Motorsports - not since Jimmie Johnson made it five in a row last year to continue his hot streak. Yet halfway through the 2011 season, the defending champion has taken just a single win while his team-mate Jeff Gordon has been to Victory Lane twice - something he has not done since 2007, when he was Johnson's biggest title rival.

A poor ninth place in the championship was all he could muster in a win-less 2010, but this year, when the likes of Penske and Roush Fenway have raised their respective games considerably, Gordon has been the only multiple winner on a Hendrick roster that also includes Dale Earnhardt Jr and Mark Martin.

This has been a year of change for Gordon inside Rick Hendrick's organisation as his team (that of the #24 car) was moved within the headquarters. The outfit operates its four teams from two dual buildings; one that used to be the 24/48 (the car numbers of Gordon and Johnson) shop, and a similar one just beside, known as the 5/88 shop where the cars of Martin and Earnhardt were prepared. Since 2001, when Johnson's team was started, his cars had been prepared under the same roof as Gordon's but this season the #24 car is being run alongside #5, while Earnhardt's car is now part of the renamed 48/88 stable.

While all the nuts and bolts come out of the same machines and fabrication shops for the four-strong fleet of Chevrolet Impalas, for many years it is the 24/48 shop had been perceived as Hendrick's core, with six titles being won by it during the past 10 years.

Also coming with the change of installation was a new group of people working with Gordon; Alan Gustafson becoming his crew chief after having performed that role on the #5 car for many years. Gordon's former crew chief Steve Letarte, who led the #24 team from 2005-2010, is now in charge of putting Earnhardt on a par with his team-mates following a poor last couple of seasons by Hendrick standards.

Gordon's car has been moved into the garage with Mark Martin's (5) in 2011 © LAT

"The two wins are great but we've been inconsistent, we've been up and down," says Gordon about his season so far. "I think that we've turned a corner. Most of the inconsistency has been on the mile-and-a-half tracks; the bigger tracks. We were just missing speed - [it] just wasn't there. But I give Alan Gustafson a lot of credit. He really went to work with his group of engineers and me to find what we can do to improve that and we've greatly done that. I think we have shown that since Charlotte [in May], where we didn't have the best race but we showed how fast we can run, performance-wise we've stepped up."

His showings on 1.5-mile tracks were indeed lacklustre early this season, but more recently he's had top-10 finishes at Kansas and Kentucky to prove that his speed at Charlotte - where he led a number of laps through pace - was no fluke. As far as his victories go, one came at Phoenix - a Chase track - in a rather dominant fashion that included him beating Kyle Busch in a hard-fought finish. His Pocono victory was not as emphatic, but he was able to beat the ultra-fast Penske Dodge of Kurt Busch, which was by then in the middle of a string of pole positions. "The old 'Golden Boy' had it in him today," said the elder Busch while admitting defeat to Gordon on that day in June.

Looking at his numbers at seven of the 10 Chase tracks that have been visited so far this year, Gordon's results compare very well to Johnson's, provided you leave aside his early-season woes on the intermediate tracks and the lottery that Talladega can turn into. The reigning champion is the obvious target, but also a moving one, as he raises the bar to a different level once the Chase starts. That's something Gordon doesn't need to be reminded of.

"They've been performing probably better than what they've got in results," Gordon says about Johnson's 2011 form. "It seems like the two races - where we've performed really well - we've won. So it's funny the way it's happened. You look at Kevin Harvick. The guy's led like nine laps but he's won three races!

Johnson has had the edge on team-mate Gordon in recent years © LAT

"With Jimmie, I think they've had to work really hard for their finishes and the thing is you can never count those guys out. They're solidly in the Chase and when it comes around I'd put them up against anybody. It doesn't matter what they do right now and I think they're performing well, but they're definitely missing something right now compared to what I've seen in the past years. But again I have no doubt they'll get it when time calls for it.

"We've got the ability to win races and that allows us to focus where we need to improve our team."

It's said that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and in Johnson's case he's definitely a product of Hendrick and Gordon. Some of his detractors would say he is as a clone of the four-time champion, but that doesn't go beyond them probably being too 'corporate' in their public manner, although that has changed a bit in recent years. Their styles may be similar, but they are not equal, neither in their technique, nor as competitors, but they definitely have a lot in common and that's helped them develop synergies inside Hendrick.

In some ways Gordon sees Johnson as he used to be some years ago; as a competitor in terms of balancing aggressiveness and being smart. After all, he's now a seasoned veteran despite only turning 40 next month - only because fellow Hendrick driver Martin, who is still competitive, turns 53 next year.

"I think Jimmie is one of the best out there because he's aggressive, yet he doesn't make a lot of mistakes," says Gordon. "He thinks about the moves that he makes. I would characterise myself in the same fashion, but I've been in the sport longer so you might not see my aggressiveness as prominent as maybe his [is]. But when the time calls for it, it's there.

"I look at myself and in some ways I'm a far better driver today because I've experienced a lot of what we do on a week-to-week basis and I'm able to just stay calm and just think about how can we get the best result and manage that risk versus reward.

Family life is important to Gordon © LAT

"Style-wise I think that Jimmie likes a looser car and he probably runs a little bit more off the right rear while I run a little bit more off the right front. We're really trying to achieve the same thing in getting the balance right, it's just how we go about it. That's been the one thing why our set-ups are very similar. You can learn from them and they can learn from us, but on race day our set-ups very rarely are the same. It's just because of the way he turns into the corner, how he brakes and how he likes to apply the throttle versus the way I do it.

"We definitely have differences, but as far as how we approach it mentally, I think it's pretty close."

Away from the racetrack, Johnson has joined Gordon in becoming a proud father, although the latter has two children, Ella and Leo. While Leo celebrates his first birthday next month, Ella is already four and old enough to understand what her dad does for a living. Having her in Victory Lane at Pocono last month was a special moment for Gordon, whose life and career merged for a while in one emotional high. He admits that being able to balance his personal life proves challenging at times, but that his growing family brings him as many rewards as when he beats the rest on-track.

"When I put that helmet on and fire that engine up I'm very competitive and I want to win and do whatever it takes to win," says Gordon. "But managing my time with sponsors, the team and the family is a tough thing to balance out, so it's definitely very challenging and also very rewarding, I mean, I've been able to go to victory lane with my daughter at Pocono.

"To me that was the ultimate; there's nothing cooler. I want to do that with my son as well. He's not old enough to really appreciate it right now but I hope I'm racing competitively when he's old enough to appreciate it."

With the Sprint Cup at its halfway stage, a number of likely title candidates have emerged as well as Gordon and Johnson. Carl Edwards is pulling the Roush Fenway train along with 2003 champion Matt Kenseth, while Kyle Busch is ahead of his team-mate Denny Hamlin on the Joe Gibbs Racing front. Both teams have won more races than Hendrick this year, while the Penske front has Kurt Busch on a charge. On his own as Richard Childress Rasing's trump card is Kevin Harvick, a man capable of pulling wins out of the hat.

Gordon says a huge number of drivers could still win the Sprint Cup title © LAT

However, with eight races left before the Chase candidates are set in stone, Gordon believes that the true forces may still be emerging. Just like McLaren or Ferrari have proved many times in Formula 1, a team can turn a season around after a slow start. Roush Fenway had the cars to beat at the start of this season - just as Red Bull has had for the past two years in grand prix racing - but Gordon believes his team can 'do' a McLaren or a Ferrari.

"It's a long season here and you'll see it in Formula 1 and we didn't see it in our series, but now you're starting to see it, that you can be behind at the beginning of the year and go to work and by the middle or the end of the year you've got it turned around," he says. "You just hope you get it turned around fast enough.

"In F1 I've always seen which teams can improve and really use the engineering and technology the best. To me McLaren or Ferrari are perfect examples. Red Bull, they're awesome, right? But now it's those guys' jobs to catch up.

"When you see Jenson Button's win in Canada or Lewis Hamilton's win in China you saw how they managed the tyres really well and their pit strategy and they have improved their car. Red Bull is still the best car out there but we've seen improvement with Ferrari too. That same thing happens over here. I would definitely say at the start of the season we were behind the Roush cars. I think we've made improvements and we're very close to them. We've got a few areas to improve in order to be back ahead of them."

The Chase is only a couple of months away and teams are working towards it. Gordon points out teams are "trying to constantly get better so that when the Chase comes around, you're at your best for those 10 tracks." It's a permanent evolution, one that in Gordon's case has yet to gain enough momentum in order to win a title again. One thing that may go in his favour is that Fontana - traditionally one of Johnson's best tracks - has been moved off the Chase in favour of a race at Chicagoland, a circuit at which Gordon usually excels, and at which his numbers are significantly better than the champion's.

Gordon's Phoenix win was his first for nearly two years © LAT

The current order shows Kyle Busch at the the top of the points table and having matched Harvick's season-high statistic of three wins. Will they be able to turn their 'regular season' form into a true championship threat?

"I never count them out," Gordon says. "Kyle is so talented and Gibbs is a great organisation. I don't know. They haven't been real consistent when it comes to the championship and when it comes down to those last 10 tracks, you need that. "That's why is hard to count out somebody like Jimmie who's so good at those 10 tracks. I've always said Hamlin can get momentum and those are 10 good tracks for him as well. Edwards and Harvick too. It's going to be interesting."

And what about that #24 car?

"I never count us out, but we kind of want to be the underdog right now. We don't want the focus to be on us yet. I want the focus to be on us five races into the Chase."

If his current form is anything to go by, that could well be the case.