Points leader finishes 25th but still atop the standings

AVONDALE, Ariz. -- By Jeff Gordon's own admission, Saturday night's Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix International Raceway was "one of those crazy nights."

For a team that hadn't faced frustration all season, just about everything that could wrong in one race, did. Sore back. Dented fenders. Missing lug nuts. All resulting in a 25th-place finish for Gordon, while allowing teammate Jimmie Johnson to nearly halve Gordon's points lead. Gordon came to Phoenix up 162. He leaves holding an 85-point advantage.

When asked if there was anything unfortunate about the race, Gordon had an easy answer.

"There were a lot of things that were unfortunate [Saturday night]," Gordon said. "It just wasn't our night."

After starting the season with a 12th-place run at Daytona, Gordon had put together six consecutive top-10 finishes, including snapping his winless streak at Texas two weeks ago. But this weekend seemed different, right from the time the team unloaded the No. 24 Chevrolet from the hauler. Even though Gordon qualified fourth, he said he wasn't 100 percent.

"I haven't been feeling good this weekend, my back was hurting," Gordon said. "When you're feeling like that, you can't really give good information, feedback to the team."

Gordon hung around the top 10 for the first 140 laps, but contact with Denny Hamlin shortly thereafter pushed in the left-front fender to where the sheet metal was rubbing against the tire and putting out a huge plume of white smoke. Gordon moved to the outside and slipped back to 18th while he and crew chief Steve Letarte pondered whether to pit under green, but seemed to catch a break three laps later when A.J. Allmendinger spun and hit the outside wall on Lap 152 (watch video).

That allowed the No. 24 crew the opportunity to make extensive repairs. But it also put him 32nd on the track when the race resumed.

Twelve laps later, Gordon found himself right in the middle of an incident involving Michael Waltrip and Robby Gordon which resulted in more bodywork damage.

"We had some damage when me and Denny got together," Gordon said. "[Waltrip and Gordon] spun out in front of me. I was trying to pass [John Andretti] and he didn't know it. It was just one of those crazy nights."

But the capper to Gordon's miserable evening was still to come. Out of sync with the rest of the lead-lap cars after repairing the bent fender, Letarte decided to leave Gordon out when the caution came out 15 laps later. That initially appeared to be a great call when Gordon restarted behind Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Marcos Ambrose when the green came back out on Lap 172.

However, few in attendance could have expected the race to stay green for the next 129 laps, forcing Gordon to head for service on Lap 234. That was when disaster struck. Gordon left pit road missing a lug nut on the left-front tire, which resulted in him having to pit a second time -- and go two laps down to the race leader.

"We had some issues in the pits," Gordon said. "We can't afford to have any mistakes any more, really. Steve made a great call to keep us out there. We just struggled with the car."

Marooned in 34th place, Gordon was able to rally back to 25th at the checkered flag, but the look on his face told the entire story.

"It was just an all-around tough night," he said.

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Texas Motor Speedway has been an unkind place to Jeff Gordon. It was in the fall here two years ago that Jimmie Johnson overtook him for the points lead, and eventually the championship. It was here last spring that Gordon crashed and finished last for just the second time in his otherwise illustrious career.

The 1.5-mile track is one of only two active Sprint Cup facilities -- Homestead-Miami Speedway being the other -- where the four-time series champion has never won, a fact he's reminded about each time he visits Fort Worth.

"I know this is a track that we definitely have been hit or miss," said Gordon, whose best finish at Texas is second. "I want to win here bad. This team deserves to win here. They put ourselves in position to win here a couple of times and just haven't had all the things that you need to have happen at the end of the race go our way. I really think we can win this thing this weekend. Our 1.5-mile program has really improved, and I'm excited about getting into our race setups and runs, because I think we got something that can work very well here."

The events of this weekend have shown that Gordon and his No. 24 team are indeed capable of checking another track off the list. He finished 11th in Saturday's final Sprint Cup practice, backing up his second-place qualifying attempt from the day before. Gordon made 41 laps around Texas during practice Saturday, his quickest at 181.665 mph. Johnson and Denny Hamlin tied for the top speed in the session, both posting top laps of 183.717. Thirty-three drivers recorded their fastest practice laps in their first circuit around the track Saturday.

Gordon is coming off one of his better Texas runs, winning the pole and finishing second behind Carl Edwards this past fall. It's all given him hope that the breakthrough will come eventually.

"It was great to get the pole last season here in the fall and finish second, but we really focus on this track knowing that we need to run better," he said. "Track position is key here, and we got the track position and weren't really able to maintain it. We just weren't good enough in the race. You know, obviously we [wanted] to qualify good again ... but we're really focused on the race and the race setup. As well as things have gone with our 1.5-mile program this year, I think we have a good shot at being much better."

Elsewhere in final practice:

• Kurt Busch, who dominated the last Sprint Cup event on a 1.5-mile tri-oval, at Atlanta on March 8, continued to struggle. After qualifying 28th, Busch was 24th in final practice Saturday. "We've got a tight race car getting in and a loose race car coming off the corners," he said. "So we've got our work cut out for us [Saturday night]."

• Can Bobby Labonte contend Sunday? He qualified 24th, and posted the 12th-fastest speed in final practice Saturday. The Corpus Christi, Texas, native also finished fifth at another 1.5-mile track, Las Vegas. "I think we've got a good package for the bigger tracks right now," Labonte said.

• Carl Edwards, who swept the two races at Texas last year, posted the eighth-fastest speed of final practice. Other notable past Texas winners included Jeff Burton (sixth), Mark Martin (10th), and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (20th).

Seven-time track winner in key spot for Sunday's race

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Jeff Gordon had mixed feelings about qualifying being washed out by rain for the Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway this Sunday.

He felt like he could win the pole. But then, as the Sprint Cup Series points leader, he knew he already had it if the skies did open up.

The showers did eventually come, so he ended up where he had hoped to be all along. Now it is a question of what he does with it, as he continues to seek an end to a winless streak that has stretched to 46 races. His last victory came on Oct. 13, 2007, at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

"There are only maybe two or three decent [pit] stalls here," Gordon said of Martinsville. "But there's only one really good one -- and that's the No. 1 pit stall. So that's what everybody really shoots for.

"Certainly at this point in the season, leading the points doesn't mean a whole lot other than you're having a pretty good year and you've been consistent. And if it rains, you get that No. 1 stall."

Some of his fellow competitors were wary of Gordon being awarded the pole. Prior to Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson wresting the unofficial title of Mr. Martinsville from him by winning four of the last five races at the .526-mile short track, Gordon registered seven victories at the joint. They came over a stretch from 1996 through 2005, when Gordon swept both Martinsville races that season.

"I think any time you're in a Hendrick car here, you're definitely going to have a good shot at dominating the day and going into Victory Lane just based on past history," said Kurt Busch, who is second in points and will start alongside Gordon on the front row Sunday. "Jeff Gordon is very strong. ... [Gordon getting] the first pit box is just icing on the cake."

Gordon said he thought he had a good shot at earning the pole had qualifying been held, and the laps he turned during the one Cup practice prior to rain washing out everything else confirmed that. He spent much of the practice on top of the speed chart, and his top lap speed of 95.985 mph ended up third behind only Denny Hamlin (96.176 mph) and Kevin Harvick (96.058 mph).

Much of the pre-race chatter has involved the hyping of some sort of Mr. Martinsville rivalry between Hendrick's two favorite sons -- Gordon and Johnson. But Gordon downplayed that notion, saying his No. 24 Chevrolet team tries hard not to get caught up in personal rivalries with Johnson or anyone else.

"The mind game thing is not for me. It's just not me," Gordon said. "That car and our team and our performance speaks for itself. If that happens to distract guys because they look at the times and look at how good we are, then great. If we go out there and we win races and we're leading the points and that distracts them, that's great. But that's certainly not our goal or our intention.

"Because of that, we don't do it. On the flip side, certainly we pay attention to who's fast and what we're capable of doing and who we're trying to beat each and every weekend, but it's never one guy. ... And even at this point in the season, one thing I've learned about the Chase is that it's all about the final 10 races."

With the current season only five races old and the start of the 10-race Chase still roughly six months away, it is difficult to fathom who might be where in the points when the Chase finally arrives. But Gordon knows one thing.

"We need wins," he said. "The points system nowadays, you've got to have wins going into that Chase for bonus points as well as momentum. And then you've got to tear it up in those final 10 races.

"That's something we're working really hard on right now -- to get to Victory Lane and get ourselves in a position where we can really focus on being better than we've been in the past in those final 10 races."

So it's really not about the small picture of beating Johnson and everyone else this Sunday at Martinsville, although, in the final analysis, it's all part of the bigger picture of finding a way, any way, to finish ahead of the three-time defending champion Johnson in the all-important Chase.

"We gave Jimmie about as good a run as anybody in 2007," Gordon said. "But there were just tracks where I felt like we -- me personally and us as a team -- are not quite as good as those guys were. And that's where we lost the championship. ... We just got beat at tracks that we were less competitive on."

One of those tracks, at least since 2005, has been Martinsville. No matter how good Gordon has been, Johnson has been a little better.

Gordon would like to change that this Sunday. But he said he is taking nothing for granted, even though he will be starting out front.

"I've never come to Martinsville thinking that I'm the guy to beat," he said. "I've never come here thinking that Jimmie is the only guy to beat. I come here thinking about how to make our car as good as we can possibly make it, so that we don't have to worry about anybody else or think about anybody else once the race starts.

"Then again, this race is not always won by the fastest car. Jimmie really proved that the year that we did battle [in 2007] and bumped and banged, because they did a different pit strategy. We were the fastest car that week and they still won the race. So to me, the fastest guy and the best guys at Martinsville are not always the guys that are going to win the race."

But it helps to be starting from the first pit box. Last fall, Johnson inherited it when rain washed out qualifying and he went on to win after leading 339 laps, dominating the race.

"When you're in that first pit box," Busch said, "it continues to add up to an advantage throughout the day. It's only going to make Jeff Gordon stronger. Those guys will be tough to beat on Sunday because of the fact he's been running strong this year and you add in a track that he's won seven times on. He's probably going to lead 339 laps just like Jimmie Johnson did."

Joe Menzer is the author of "The Great American Gamble: How the 1979 Daytona 500 Gave Birth to a NASCAR Nation." Click here to purchase.

Feels team is getting closer to ending long winless streak

HAMPTON, Ga. -- Jeff Gordon didn't win Sunday's Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, but he came up clutch when it counted most.

Struggling with a slipping clutch that made nearly every pit stop an adventure, Gordon thought he had a real chance to end a 44-race winless streak that dates to the fall race at Lowe's Motor Speedway in 2007. Instead, he had to settle for second behind Kurt Busch -- his third top-10 finish in the four races run so far this season.

Gordon continues to pace the standings, leading Clint Bowyer by 43 points heading into the first off week of 2009.

"It's encouraging," Gordon said. "I'm a big believer in that you have to walk before you can run, and 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. And I believe if we keep doing that, we're going to win races. And we haven't really reached our full potential yet."

Starting 16th, Gordon made his way into the top 10 within the first 20 laps and cracked the top five by Lap 40. He was one of the few cars due to make a green-flag stop when a loose tire rolled out into the infield grass, unfortunately chased by a crew member, which brought out the caution on Lap 67.

But when Gordon pitted with the lead-lap cars on the following circuit, he got an unpleasant surprise. While the No. 24 Chevrolet was up on the jack, the transmission suddenly engaged and the car lurched forward, tearing up the side panel.

"It somehow was bleeding off or just had some air in it," Gordon said. "On the first pit stop, on four-tire stops, when you drop the right side, usually you push the clutch in and put it in first gear and get ready to leave. And halfway through changing the left side, the rear tires started turning and it climbed right off the jack. We were lucky that they finished the stop and we didn't really lose any spots, although there was a little bit of damage to the side."

The slipping clutch was an issue from that point forward, Gordon admitted.

"From that point on, I had to play around with it," he said. "It would last for maybe a second, 2 seconds before it would just start to grab, and I had it pushed all the way to the floor. I thought that it was a one-time thing until about the fourth stop, and got the same thing.

"There at the end, I'd put it in gear just as they dropped the left side and we gave up just a blink of any eye, but at least we weren't spinning the rear tires and going off the jack or missing lug nuts. It could have been a lot worse. The guys adapted well and we didn't panic."

In fact, stellar work in the pits put Gordon in front on Lap 205, and he went on to lead the next 47 circuits. That is, until Busch started taking big chunks out of Gordon's lead with every lap, eliminating Gordon's 4-second advantage in less than a dozen laps. Still, Gordon stayed in contention, and when debris created a green-white-checkered finish, it set up one last chance.

Gordon was lined up third, behind Busch and Carl Edwards, who opted for two tires. And at the time, he thought his chances were good.

"Certainly, I would have liked to have beaten [Busch] out of the pit road, but even there in third, I thought we had a shot at him," Gordon said. "I was pretty sure we were going to get by [Edwards]."

But on the restart, Busch blocked Gordon's run on the high side, taking away much of his momentum. And then Gordon was unable to dispose of Edwards in a timely fashion, which let Busch build an insurmountable advantage.

"On the restart, I had a run on the 2 and he saw me coming and we about got in the fence there going into [Turn] 1, so I checked up behind him and we started making up momentum on the 99," Gordon said. "We got by him but I didn't quite clear him.

"I drove too deep into [Turn] 3, trying to get to the outside of the 2 and when I did, the 2 drifted up, made me wash out and the 99 got back underneath me. Once that happened, I needed to be clear of the 99 to have any shot at the 2. And so we kind of had to settle for second."

Still, Gordon could see nothing but positives, even though the next chance for victory will have to wait until Bristol, at the earliest.

"It was a great day for us, though," Gordon said. "Just driving to the front, battling up front, leading laps, battling for the lead at times. We lost a little something there in the long runs there, middle of the way on and those guys were a little bit stronger than us. But on the restarts, we were real strong.

"Of course, I want to win, and we've been close. But I'm not going to say we're frustrated. We're pretty happy, the way we've been running."

Becomes fifth driver to win season's first two races

FONTANA, Calif. -- Daytona 500 winner Matt Kenseth made it two victories in a row Sunday, holding off a late challenge from Jeff Gordon to win the Auto Club 500.

Kenseth took the lead from Gordon in the pits with 38 laps to go in the 250-lap race and stayed ahead of the runner-up in the battle of former Cup champions, pulling away over the last 20 laps.

It is the first time a Cup driver has won the first two races of the season since Gordon did it in 1997 on the way to the second of his four championships.

"It's such a great team," Kenseth said. "I just thank these guys [on the crew]. They gave me a great stop and got me in clean air and that's just a huge difference."

Kenseth and Gordon were much faster than the rest of the field at the end, both of them pulling away from the pack. But Gordon, like Kenseth winless last year, was unable to get to Kenseth's rear bumper and get a real run on the No. 17 Roush Fenway Ford.

"It was a lot of fun," Gordon said. "This is a new team and they showed it tonight. We've still got a little bit of work to do. I'm so excited on one side because we ran so well and we started out the season so great, but I'm still mad on the other side because I felt like we had what it took to win tonight."

It was Kenseth's third victory on the 2-mile Auto Club Speedway oval and the fifth consecutive February victory for team co-owner Jack Roush.

Kyle Busch, who made NASCAR history by winning both the Truck and Nationwide races on Saturday, came up short of the weekend sweep.

"It's never been done before, so you know it's a challenge," Busch said after finishing third. "The last one's always the hard one to get. It's on Sunday and it's the biggest show. Maybe one day."

Greg Biffle was a contender throughout the race, but fell to 12th after being penalized for running over his own air hose on a pit stop on Lap 209. He charged all the way to fourth, but was still upset by his mistake.

"They should fire me," said Biffle, one of four Kenseth teammates. "You just can't make mistakes like that."

Kurt Busch finished fifth, followed by Denny Hamlin, defending race winner Carl Edwards, two-time Cup champion Tony Stewart and three-time reigning Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, who led 74 laps but faded in the late-going.

'I want to win races ... go for the championship,' he says

Jeff Gordon doesn't want to hear about a 41-race losing streak -- not when he feels like the next race, the Daytona 500, is virtually a sure thing for him.

Gordon, a four-time Cup Series champion, isn't in the habit of making brash predictions. But given the fact that he hasn't won since October 2007 and that crew chief Steve Letarte has come under fire for some of that shortfall, it's rather odd that a 30th-place finish last summer at Daytona would create so much anticipation for Gordon.

"Well, the biggest reason that I'm really fired up about Daytona this year is without the testing, I felt like we had the best car here last July," Gordon said. "I made a couple mistakes and cost us the race, but we had, I felt, great power and the best handling car, for sure, in the race."

In fact, Gordon led 23 laps and was in front with only eight laps to go when he got shuffled back.

The first low-key offseason in Gordon's 17-year career makes him a big booster of NASCAR's current testing ban at sanctioned tracks, which he also said insures the edge he had last July at Daytona.

"Now, February is always a little bit different than July because the temperatures are a little bit different, track conditions are a little bit different," Gordon said. "But with no changes and no testing, we've got a great package. Over the offseason I visited our engine shop and I'm really excited about some things that they've got going on there, too. I feel like we've gotten more power.

"I think Daytona, we've got a great opportunity to come here and be very competitive and have a shot at winning another one."

For what it's worth, Gordon won his second Cup championship after winning his first Daytona 500, in 1997. That he had no such luck after winning the Great American Race in both 1999 and 2005 is not a deterrent.

And neither are the evil streaks he's currently mired in, though he did log seven top-10 finishes in his last nine starts of 2008, including four top-fives.

"No matter what kind of season we have -- if we've won 13 races or no races -- you always look at what you can do to be better for the next season," Gordon said. "That's the way I'm looking at it this season, is I'm not dwelling on the fact that we didn't win.

"I'm not sitting here saying we're not capable of winning; I think that we are. I felt like we had some races that got away from us last year that we could have won. But you've got to seize those moments and opportunities, especially as competitive as it is these days, and if you look at the guys that were winning last year, they weren't spreading the love around a whole lot."

There was a slight shift in the balance of power from 2007, when Gordon won six times and his Hendrick Motorsports teammates won half of the season's 36 races, to 2008 when Carl Edwards (nine wins), Kyle Busch (eight) and Jimmie Johnson (seven) kept anyone else from winning more than twice.

"I feel like we really hit on some things later in the year, but it was too late," Gordon said. "So we have a good direction. To me it's not even about getting back to Victory Lane. Yeah, I want to win races, I want to be competitive enough to win races, I want to be competitive enough to lead laps and competitive enough to go for the championship.

"That's really what it's all about, but I think that in order to do that you're going to win races along the way. I think we're very capable of doing that this year, and we're focused, we're working hard and it's going to be interesting to see how the no testing policy plays out -- if it's an advantage for us or a disadvantage. It's going to be interesting for everybody."

For Gordon, the most interesting thing about the fact that he'll be 38 years old this summer is that it seemingly allows him to see personal shortcomings, with the expected adjustments, as necessary.

Last year as the winless streak extended, some questioned Gordon's ability to deal with the new car on a week-in, week-out basis, even though he'd won twice with it in its first season and took five pole positions.

At Fan Fest earlier this month, Gordon talked about a conversation he had on an airplane with Truck Series driver Rick Crawford, that series' elder statesman in number of career starts.

"I believe in myself that I still have what it takes [to compete]," Gordon said. "Rick Crawford and I were talking about being in a series for long periods of time and how it's tough to adjust.

"Any veteran that you talk to, if they're honest with you, they'll tell you that sometimes it takes a little longer to transition through new cars, new setups, new tires. And so last year was a little bit of an adjustment for me that I think I'm well-prepared for this year -- but might have gotten a little behind on it last year."

And that's where Gordon's staunch support of Letarte shines. He didn't blame the long-time Hendrick employee, who worked up from sweeping floors to being featured in TV ads, calling him the only one he'd want to lead his team.

"I really believe Steve is the guy," Gordon said. "I mean, he's an awesome crew chief. I know he took a lot of criticism last year, but I believe in him. We've made small improvements I feel like that were needed, and I'm doing everything I can to make sure that I play my role in getting us back to Victory Lane."

Maybe even in the Daytona 500 on Feb. 15.

Riggs, Smith, Allmendinger and Mayfield race way in

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Kyle Busch held off Mark Martin and Brian Vickers in a drag race to the finish line to win the second of two Gatorade Duel 150 qualifying races Thursday at Daytona International Speedway.

Jeff Gordon beat Tony Stewart to the finish line in the first 60-lap Duel. It was Gordon's fifth win in a Daytona qualifying race, tied for second in the modern era (since 1972).

Busch, who blocked both Martin and Vickers in the final half-mile at the 2.5-mile superspeedway, will start fourth in Sunday's Daytona 500, with Gordon securing the third starting position. Martin Truex Jr. and Mark Martin claimed the top two spots, respectively, in last Sunday's time trials.

As thrilling as Busch's victory was, the real drama in the race unfolded back in the pack, with Jeremy Mayfield and A.J. Allmendinger claiming the two available transfer spots from the second Duel. Mayfield took two tires on his final pit stop, restarted third on Lap 53 after a caution for Ryan Newman's hard crash into the backstretch wall and held on to a ninth-place finish.

With plenty of help from Richard Petty Motorsports teammates Elliott Sadler and Reed Sorenson, Allmendinger finished 10th to earn the second transfer position, edging Mike Wallace, who ran 13th, for the spot. Stewart's second-place finish in the first Duel promoted Regan Smith -- fourth fastest in time trials -- into the 500; Scott Riggs claimed the final position in Sunday's race with an eighth-place finish in the first Duel.

Busch, who won eight Cup races last year before a late-season collapse in the Chase, credited Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin, who finished fifth, with providing the help he needed to win the race.

"The reason I won this race was a great teammate," Busch said. "Denny ... that was the best restrictor-plate race I think we probably ever worked together. I really felt good about that. I hope it carries into Sunday, and I'll be able to return the favor sometime.

"I could have rode the last five laps and pushed Mark Martin to the win. That would have been a Cinderella story and given you something to write about."

The victory in the first Duel gave Gordon his first trip to Victory Lane after a NASCAR race since Oct. 13, 2007, at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

"It feels fantastic," said Gordon, who won the first of his Daytona qualifying races as a Cup rookie in 1993. "We talked before the race. Doesn't matter if it's a qualifying race, the Daytona 500, you know--any confidence builder and momentum we can get is a positive.

"It was a great race out there. The car was driving well. It was a lot of fun dicing it up with Martin [Truex] at the beginning, and then with Tony, Jimmie [Johnson], [Jamie] McMurray -- a bunch of them. I can't even remember all the things that went on out there. It was a great race."

Allmendinger was so overcome with emotion that he donned sunglasses to hide his tears.

"I haven't slept well for about a week and half now," Allmendinger said. "This year, I felt like I deserved to be in this race. I earned my way in. This whole team deserved it for how hard they've worked the last few weeks to put this program together.

"I felt like there was more pressure on my shoulders than there's ever been. The first half of the race, I wasn't happy, but my teammates came back there and saved me. They were running strong but came back to get me."

News & Notes

• Rookie Joey Logano ran toward the rear of the field for much of the first Duel but charged to the front in the closing stages and finished fourth. Logano earned the ninth starting position in the Daytona 500.
• Three-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson finished third in the first Duel and will start seventh Sunday.
• Kasey Kahne's crew did the pit work for Allmendinger, as the team tried to find an edge that would get Allmendinger into the 500. Kahne finished seventh in the first Duel.
• Riggs and Mayfield made the field for teams that didn't exist last year, Tommy Baldwin Motorsports and Jeremy Mayfield Motorsports.
• Terry Labonte finished 19th in the first Duel but will start 43rd in Sunday's race on a past champion's provisional.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- At Daytona International Speedway, the Jeff Gordon Foundation celebrated "A Decade of Caring" and launched its TEN Match Campaign.

Since 1999, Jeff Gordon and his foundation have been working to improve the lives of children facing critical illness. Now in its 10th year, the foundation has focused its efforts on pediatric cancer, the No. 1 disease killer of children, and the Jeff Gordon Children's Hospital in Concord, N.C.

The TEN Match Campaign was created to celebrate the anniversary of the foundation. Through this campaign, every contribution of $10 (TEN) or more will be personally matched by four-time Cup Series champion Gordon. Gordon will match up to $250,000 for this campaign. Each donation will support children battling pediatric cancer through programs to improve patients' quality of life, treatment programs that increase survivorship, medical research and the Jeff Gordon Children's Hospital.

"We all know the economy is tough right now," Gordon said. "That's why we hope that by asking many people to give a little, we can really make a difference in a lot of children's lives."

Jim Hunter, vice president of NASCAR corporate communications introduced Gordon at the news conference and congratulated him on his leadership in philanthropy in the world of stock car racing. Following his comments Hunter presented Gordon with a check for $24,000 as the first donation to the TEN Match Campaign, a gift which Gordon immediately matched.

Betty Jane France, NASCAR Foundation chairperson, acknowledged the impact Gordon has made with his foundation.

"Jeff Gordon was one of the first NASCAR drivers to start a foundation, and his focus has always been on helping children," France said. "He is not only a champion driver, but also a champion for charitable causes. The NASCAR Foundation is proud to make a $24,000 donation to the Jeff Gordon Foundation.

The Jeff Gordon Foundation will be celebrating "A Decade of Caring" and accepting contributions to the TEN Match Campaign throughout 2009. For more information about the Jeff Gordon Foundation, the TEN Match Campaign, and how you can help make an impact on a child's life, visit www.jeffgordonfoundation.org.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Three-time Daytona 500 winner Jeff Gordon is the latest driver added to the driver appearance schedule for the annual Preseason Thunder Fan Fests at historic Daytona International Speedway on Jan. 16-17.

Gordon, a four-time Cup Series champion and driver of the No. 24 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, will make his appearance during the noon-4 p.m. session on Jan. 17.

Other additions and changes to the schedule include 2008 Cup Series runner-up Carl Edwards moving to the Jan. 16 evening session and Marcos Ambrose appearing in the Jan. 17 evening session.

Drivers scheduled to make appearances on Jan. 16 beginning at 6 p.m. include Edwards, defending Daytona 500 winner Ryan Newman, two-time Cup Series champion Tony Stewart, Jeff Burton, Kyle Busch, Reed Sorenson, Aric Almirola, Casey Mears, Greg Biffle, Travis Kvapil, David Gilliland, 1995 Truck Series champion Mike Skinner and Jon Wes Townley.

Scheduled to appear on Jan. 17 during the noon-4 p.m. session include Gordon, three-time Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson, 2003 Cup Series champion Matt Kenseth, Mark Martin, Denny Hamlin, David Ragan, Colin Braun, Erik Darnell, Paul Menard and Alex Garcia.

In the 4-8 p.m. session on Jan. 17, drivers scheduled to appear include Ambrose, former Daytona 500 winners Dale Earnhardt Jr., Michael Waltrip and Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski and three-time Truck Series champion Ron Hornaday.

Tickets are $15 with autograph session availability limited to only 100 people per driver in advance. To purchase tickets and request access to the special autograph sessions, call 1-800-PITSHOP. Gordon's autograph session availability will go on sale at 9 a.m. ET on Jan. 5.

Back in the early 1990s, California-born Jeff Gordon caught a wave.

The four-time Cup Series champion has ridden the surge of NASCAR's popularity to a 37th-place ranking in this year's Celebrity 100 as selected by Forbes magazine, which lists Gordon's annual income, including endorsements, at $32 million, a figure Gordon says is overblown.

"Don't pay attention to what Forbes puts in there," Gordon quipped after Friday night's formal Sprint Cup awards banquet at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. "They add a lot of extra numbers."

What happens, however, when the currents of fortune turn awry? What happens when a driver with Gordon's savoir faire, "Q" rating and crossover popularity can't sustain the upward trend line that has carried him throughout his career?

If you're Jeff Gordon, you embrace the notion of shared sacrifice, even if that means rebating part of your annual salary to keep your team competing at the highest level. In his willingness to entertain that idea, Gordon is not alone in the Cup garage.

Gordon, who drives the No. 24 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, understands that the economic problems confronting big-time stock car racing are far more generalized than the specific troubles that have beset U.S. automakers General Motors, Ford and Chrysler and have forced the Big Three to go hat-in-hand to Congress.

"I'm taking a hit regardless of what happens with GM, through some other sponsors and personal endorsements," Gordon said. "It's affecting all of us in some way, somehow. ...

"This is not a laughing matter. It's tough times. It's something to be very serious about. We not only have to pay attention to raising money and finding companies out there to do that with, but we also have to watch our costs as well and not be exuberant."

Nicorette, which sponsored Gordon's car for eight of 36 Cup races, won't be back in 2009. National Guard, currently on teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s No. 88 Chevy, is rumored to be moving to Gordon.

"We have replaced them," Gordon acknowledged in response to a question about Nicorette. "I still don't know why we haven't announced it yet."

So, is it National Guard?

"We have replaced them," Gordon deadpanned, ducking the direct question.

Gordon, however, hasn't replaced his lucrative endorsement deal with manufacturing giant Georgia Pacific, an indication that times are tough all over, even for the NASCAR millionaires who actor Kevin Costner said at the banquet should send a vote of thanks to Richard Petty, the seven-time champion who pioneered NASCAR's popularity.

"Georgia Pacific was a personal endorsement of mine, and they were on the car as well, but they were a big endorser, and they're not coming back," Gordon said. "I'm one of those millionaires that Kevin Costner talked about, so I'll thank Richard Petty. But ... it doesn't matter if you're making millions or making thousands -- it's all perspective.

"When it's been escalating going up, and then you get to a year when it's going to take a dip, it gets your attention -- and it's going to get all of our attention."

Sponsors, clearly, are critical to the successful operation of a top-echelon Cup team. Gordon acknowledged Friday that his annual salary is roughly a third of the No. 24 team's annual budget. It takes somewhere near $30 million to operate a championship-caliber team for a year. Do the math.

Gordon is willing to sacrifice salary in lieu of sacrificing performance, if it comes to that.

"The way I look at is that I always say to [team owner] Rick Hendrick, 'I'll do whatever it takes for us to have the best team we can possibly have,' Gordon said. "If that means take part of my salary to keep certain people on or to hire certain people, I'll do it."

Gordon doesn't apologize for the lifestyle he has earned, but he does admit to pangs of guilt dating to his first purchase of an expensive motor home, an accessory that's almost a requirement in the Cup garage.

"It's stupid what we spend on motor homes and planes and all this," he said. "Do we need that? No. But things have been good for us. The sport's been good. I'm living this way because things have been very good. Now, obviously, we're having to cut back, and I have to cut back, too. ...

"If me and Rick Hendrick sit down and we talk about the position that we're in -- obviously I'm not the only one -- but I would be open to it. Listen, I never [got into] this to make millions of dollars. I never dreamed in a million years I was going to make this kind of money. This is ridiculous.

"But, at the same time, I've put myself in a financial position because I know my contract, that I have to make sure I take care of those things and I don't just find myself in debt and going to court trying to cover my debt. Would it happen immediately? Maybe not. But could it happen over time? Absolutely."

Kevin Harvick, who owns teams in NASCAR's Nationwide and Craftsman Truck series, says he went to his Cup owner, Richard Childress, to express his willingness to sacrifice.

"I brought it up," Harvick said. "From a driver's standpoint, the drivers have been on top of the world for the past several years, because there haven't been enough [marquee] drivers to go around, and teams have been doing whatever they had to do to get the drivers. The owners are back in charge, in my opinion."

Harvick knows he's not alone in placing performance issues above personal gain.

"I don't think I'm the only one that would be in that category," he said. "I think 90 percent of the drivers are business-savvy enough, unlike other sports, to understand from a business standpoint where the world is, and sometimes you've got to tighten the belt and you've got to make sure everything is distributed so that everybody survives.

"If it's all about you, sometimes you get left on the boat."