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Talented, yes Gordon's enormous potential yet to be reigned in
It's hard to argue Jim Smith's decision to jettison Mike Wallace. Make that impossible to argue that decision. Take away Wallace's two top 10s (at Daytona and Talladega) and this is what the Ultra Motorsports team has to show for 2001: 40th, 32nd, 40th, 32nd, 37th, 24th, 31st, 16th, 25th and 28th. Can't you just hear it? The NationsRent Ford ran real well today -- 16th isn't where we want to be or where we expect to be, heck, we want to win! But it's a start. And today just shows the guys that all their hard work is beginning to pay off. Right. Of course Smith wants to dump Wallace. But Robby Gordon? Robby Gordon?!? Say whatever you want about that second place at Sears Point: He coulda, woulda, shoulda won, it was the best result of his 51-race Winston Cup career, he carried a mediocre car on talent alone. ... All of that may be true; it still doesn't wash. First of all, the guy grew up on the roads, for God's sake. The two other top-fives in his thoroughly unspectacular career? Road courses. Is Gordon talented? Sure, we'll give you that -- right after you give us that some teams, like the No. 7, are desperate, too. And that other thing: Could he have, would he have, should he have won Sears Point? Certainly, except for one thing: He's Robby Gordon! The stubbornness that Gordon, 32, demonstrated Sunday when he was unwilling to let the lapped Kevin Harvick pass late in the race (a cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face action that probably cost Gordon a storybook win) is the same stubbornness that has cost him so dearly in Winston Cup. Since first dipping his toes into NASCAR 10 years ago, Gordon has driven for nine owners, and along the way, he has cultivated a reputation as a fantastically difficult person to deal with. Whatever the specifics of his departure earlier this year from Morgan-McClure Motorsports just five races into a five-year contract, there can be little doubt that Gordon put some noses seriously out of joint. And remember, this is a guy who got into a snit last July and read the riot act to Robert and Doug Yates. According to witnesses, Gordon was under the opinion that the Yates motors he was leasing weren't up to snuff. NASCAR is nothing if not hidebound. That is, things are done a certain way, period. Change, if it comes at all, doesn't come easily or quickly. Enter Gordon, a supremely talented and a reasonably accomplished driver in everything but a Cup car who, seemingly everywhere he's been, conducts himself as though he and he alone has the remedy to whatever ills a team suffers. This despite the fact that he has run fewer than two seasons' worth of races in 10 years and won nothing. Though Gordon is clearly intelligent, apparently, he has yet to fully appreciate either the importance of diplomacy or the premium that success in NASCAR places on good working relationships. Were he of a mind, Jeff Gordon could talk smack if he wanted, but not Robby. Arguably, the most successful and least controversial period of Gordon's racing career came when he drove for A.J. Foyt, a man with enough weight to ensure that even the irrepressible Gordon toed the line. And though Smith doesn't come equipped with Foyt's reputation, perhaps the fact that he is an old friend and former competitor of Gordon's will give him the room he needs to get the most out of Gordon and his talent. If not, even Mike Wallace begins to look pretty good. Stephen Thomas covers NASCAR for CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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