Gordon: We've turned the corner
Sprint Cup series points leader Jeff Gordon believes his team have finally turned the corner on the set-up issues that prevented them from fighting for the title last year
The Hendrick driver has enjoyed a good start to his season, finishing twice in second place with a worst finish of thirteenth in the season-opener at Daytona.
He now leads the standings for the second week in a row after being a contender for victory at Atlanta on Sunday, where he challenged winner Kurt Busch on the final restart.
"We kind of had to settle for second," Gordon said about last weekend's race. "It was a great day for us, though. Just driving to the front, battling up front, leading laps, battling for the lead at times.
"We lost a little something there on the long runs, middle of the way on. Those guys were a little bit stronger than us. We were just settling in. But on the restarts we were real strong."
After struggling many times last year with set up issues while trying to get the right handling of the new Cup car at the intermediate tracks, Gordon believes his current trend of results prove that his team have finally gotten over those problems thanks to hard work during the winter months.
Gordon has not won a points paying race since October of 2007, but he is adamant that a victory should not be far now.
"I'm a big believer that you got to walk before you can run," Gordon says. "I think we've turned the corner. This team has really shown consistently in all four races this year that we're a team that can battle up front and for the win.
"I believe we keep doing that, we're going to win races. I think that we haven't really reached our full potential yet either. We're experimenting with something that the guys worked hard on over the off-season, the engineers, (crew chief) Steve (Letarte), all the guys on this team. It's already been paying off. We're just really early into it. I think we can only make it better.
"Of course, I want to win. We've been close. But I'm not going to say we feel like we're frustrated. We're pretty happy the way we're running."
Gordon currently leads the Sprint Cup Series driver standings, 43 points ahead of Clint Bowyer. A year ago the four-time champion was only fifteenth in the championship.
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