Track Smack: Battling out of an odd deficit ... already

1. Jeff Gordon, the defending winner of this week's race at Phoenix, has three finishes in the top five this season and three more of 35th or worse. Will the real four-time champion please stand up?

Mark Aumann: This has to be one of the oddest seasons for Gordon -- and I mean that literally. He's finished 39th, 35th, 11th and 43rd in odd-numbered races this year, and all three of his top-fives have come in even-numbered events.

David Caraviello: Jeff's not nearly as bad as some of those poor finishes would suggest. He's had some rotten luck early this season, perhaps making up for everything going right for him during the first half of last year.

Dave Rodman: Phoenix is a short track. He'll be fine. Even though his Bristol outing was like Texas in terms of a struggle -- and the finish matched the depth of the struggle.

Mark Aumann: Texas was the first time I can remember where the No. 24 was awful from the time it rolled off the hauler until they put what was left of it back in the truck. But then again, Texas has been Gordon's worst track -- and Phoenix is one of his best.

David Caraviello: Although he had never won there until this race last year, when he tied the late Dale Earnhardt in career wins and broke out the big No. 3 flag. That was great stuff. The Las Vegas race almost sums up the first part of his season -- run great, up among the leaders, and get knocked out in a wreck near the end. Just bad timing.

Dave Rodman: But the timing at Vegas was all his -- he made the mistake.

David Caraviello: Oh, no question. But still, it was a great run ruined at the very end.

Dave Rodman: Very true, and I don't want to minimize that. I will say this: If they don't straighten it out, I think Ella will be missing her daddy for awhile -- because I think the 24 will do what the 48 did, to straighten their deal out from Atlanta to Texas.

Mark Aumann: It really does show how narrow the range of "decent handling" is now on these cars. It's amazing how far off they were, after being pretty good at intermediate tracks up to that point. As Junior said, you make a minor correction and it makes a huge change to the handling.

David Caraviello: And how hard they are to drive. You don't see Jeff Gordon make mistakes like the one he made at Las Vegas very often.

Mark Aumann: And it really tells you a lot about how good Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch have been -- or how they can drive a car that's not perfect.

Dave Rodman: Well, to some degree that speaks to what our Texas winner was saying. Could be the dawn of a new era -- and there's something to be said for that. Though, until we grow enough race drivers who can drive 'em, we're gonna have to get used to some damned boring racing -- to hear the masses preach it.

David Caraviello: Thing about Gordon is, he and teammate Jimmie Johnson -- whose cars come out of the same Hendrick shop -- have had very similar early seasons. Johnson just hasn't had the accidents that have set him back. But they both started off sluggishly, by their own standards.

Mark Aumann: One of the byproducts of the new car is the lack of attrition. And that really hurts someone who runs up front all race -- Greg Biffle and Martin Truex Jr. at Texas -- and has a failure late in the race. They lost major points because so many cars were still running at the time.

Dave Rodman: Busch and Edwards are the consummate wheelmen. They might make rash errors -- but not very often. And it's just proof again, gimmies are not necessarily a good thing. You have got to close the deal.

David Caraviello: I agree with Dave, I think Gordon will eventually be all right. But history shows us that it's dangerous to spend so much of the year hanging around that Chase cutoff line. It gets harder and harder to get out of that danger zone as the year goes on, the point differences grow, and it become more difficult to climb over people.

Mark Aumann: Well, there are probably 15 cars fighting over 12 spots. And yeah, after Richmond, three folks are going to look back on a race or two that made the difference. For Gordon, it could very well be Texas.

Dave Rodman: That's true. You can say you're not worried about it -- but the next slip might be the one you don't want to make. Kinda like Michael McDowell's accident. (Continued)