Gordon parlaying solid qualifying into best ever start

	With crew chief Steve Letarte in his ear for the second straight season, Jeff Gordon seemsw to have found a comfort level he's never enjoyed before in his Cup career. AP

Here are five things we learned on Sunday in Richmond, the windiest day in recent memory at a Cup race.

1. Jeff Gordon is going to be extremely hard to beat this year.

Gordon didn't have his best-handling car of the season on Sunday, but he still managed to finish fourth. Producing a good finish out of an ordinary car is something that Gordon has been able to do his entire career -- and, frankly, when you boil it down, is why the guy is so good -- but this year there's just something different about Gordon and his No. 24 team. Instead of eeking out a 10th place run when they struggle, which is what this team did last year, now Gordon and his crew chief Steve Letarte are coming in fourth.

After the race I walked with Gordon down pit road and I asked him if, 10 races into the schedule, this was the best start to a season that he's ever had. Now, remember, Gordon has won four championships in his career and in 1998 -- which is widely considered to be one of the most dominant seasons in NASCAR history -- he won 13 races and had 26 top-five runs.

So what did Gordon say late on Sunday afternoon as he squinted into the falling Virginia sun? "There's no doubt this is the best start I've ever had," said Gordon, who currently holds a hard-to-believe 233-point lead in the standings over his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson. "A big key is that we're qualifying up front. And I've been known throughout my career to finish well if I qualify well. Everything is just really clicking right now."

Indeed. If not for the 10-race Chase format, which makes it possible for a team to get hot late in the season and steal the title a la Kurt Busch in 2004, you'd have to say that it'd be a huge upset if Gordon didn't win the championship. As it stands, if Gordon can maintain his momentum and not suffer any unreasonable amount of bad luck late in the year, it's going to be very, very hard for any driver to speed past Gordon this season.