Gordon not taking cautious approach

Gordon currently has a 68-point gap to Jimmie Johnson in the Chase for the Nextel Cup and has taken two wins in the first five races of the season's playoff. He expects his teammate to push for victory every weekend and Gordon says he still has to push just as much hoping to get more victories to consolidate his current position.

"I don't think that you can be cautious right now," Gordon said. "I think that you got to be smart but that's always the case. I think that Jimmie's going to be pushing extremely hard because one, he's won the last couple races here and two, he had a bit of an off weekend last race out in Charlotte.

"So I would think that this would be one that he's certainly not going to be taking it easy on and our competitors that we're racing against are not going to be taking it easy, so we can't either. It's not that time yet. I hope there comes a time later in the schedule in this year that that is the case but now we got to go out and race hard and we're racing to win."

The four-times Nextel Cup champion is closing on his fifth crown and his first under the Chase format. Despite some favouritism for Sunday's race at Martinsville, where he has won seven times in the past, he says he is not taking any special approach into this weekend.

"My feelings are kind of approaching it like we do every weekend," Gordon added. "Just like last week you can't pay attention to the stats because if you had we would have never finished that race. And if you pay attention to stats this weekend then it means that we're supposed to win and I don't think we can look at it that way at all.

"Obviously this is a great track for us. We know that but we still have to do our jobs and so that's the way we're approaching it. There are no guarantees anywhere in this schedule with these last five races for sure."

Gordon will be starting from pole position on Sunday at Martinsville, making it the tenth time that he has done so this season.