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A welcome week Struggling Gordon glad to focus on road course streak
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. (AP) --A victory by Jeff Gordon at Watkins Glen International would make him NASCAR's undisputed King of the Road. But the three-time Winston Cup champion won't be motivated solely by the opportunity to win for a record-breaking seventh time on a road course. The prospect of victory alone will provide enough incentive. “I just like winning whether it's for the seventh time or the first time,” said Gordon, who on Sunday will try to make the Global Crossing his fourth straight victory on the 2.45-mile layout. “It doesn't matter to me. “Watkins Glen is an opportunity for us to win a race. We need to take advantage of that and not let it slip away.” Victories have not come easy for Gordon this year. He's in search of only his third this season and fifth in the past 40 races. That doesn't sound bad until you consider that he got 45 of his 51 career victories in the preceding 145 races. What's wrong? Gordon, like virtually all the Chevrolet drivers, is struggling with the handling of his redesigned Monte Carlo. In fact, among all Chevy drivers, only Dale Earnhardt - who's third in the Winston Cup standings - can claim to be having a good year. NASCAR already has made slight aerodynamics rules changes to help the Chevys, but they still seem inferior. Fords have won nine races, Pontiacs six and Chevys five. So slow are the Chevys that Gordon still is trying to figure out how he won in April at Talladega Superspeedway, the biggest and fastest NASCAR track. There, Chevys, which experience more rear drag than the Fords, are supposed to be at their worst. “I'm still not sure how that worked out, and I think that's what threw NASCAR off,” Gordon said of his victory in the Diehard 500. Physically, it was easy to see what happened. Gordon made a couple of bold moves at the end and hung on to win. “I'll be surprised if that happens again,” Gordon said. “Two Fords had to get side by side for me to pass them.” Whether the perceived disadvantage of the Chevys disappears at Watkins Glen remains to be seen. But on paper, the race could be a battle of Monte Carlos between Gordon and road-racing ace Ron Fellows. Last year, only Gordon stopped Fellows from becoming the first non-regular to win a Winston Cup race since the late Mark Donohue took the checkered flag in 1973 on the road course at Riverside, Calif. Gordon is excited by the prospect of a showdown with Fellows, who has three victories, two seconds and a third in his past six NASCAR starts here. Fellows has won twice each in the Busch and Craftsman Truck series, and has five poles in 11 career starts on the serpentine track, one of only two road courses on the circuit. “I think he's the best there is at Watkins Glen,” said Gordon, who also has won three straight races at the road course in Sonoma, Calif. “If a guy like that ever gets in front of you, it's over. You can't pass him.” Fellows laughed at that. “I just hope he remembers that on Sunday,” the Canadian said. Still, Gordon thinks he should have the edge on Fellows, saying that a team involved every week has a better chance to solve problems than one that shows up only at road courses. Gordon believes his overall package last year was better than that of Fellows, whose car is owned by Winston Cup driver Joe Nemechek. Although Gordon's famed Rainbow Warriors pit crew is gone this year, his new crew has been very good. That should give him another advantage over Fellows and another road-racing ace, Boris Said, who started second last year. “But that doesn't mean it automatically works out that way,” Gordon said. “The best pit crews in the business will have a glitch once in a while, but statistics and percentages are in our favor.” Fellows won't argue that point. “So, we have to get some advantage on the track,” he said. “That would make up the difference.” Also shooting for a seventh career road course victory is Rusty Wallace, the Watkins Glen polesitter last year, who has put his Ford on the point a series-best seven times this season.
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