HOMESTEAD, Fla. – In the 2015 season, Jeff Gordon has recorded 20 top-10 finishes.
He earned seven in the nine races to this point in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup alone. His lone win of the campaign came in the Chase – his memorable victory at Martinsville Speedway – and his worst finish in the postseason has been 14th.
Now, Gordon’s final season is going the way he hoped it would all along.
“I'll tell you, it didn’t right up until the Chase started,” he said. “I was pretty disappointed. I mean, it wasn't that we ever stopped working hard on it and trying to improve our cars, improve our team, improve our communication, and we had some rough patches along the way, but when we got close to Chicago, I started seeing pieces fall together that really showed the strength of our race team.”
The start of the Chase was a turning point for the No. 24 team, and it has led Gordon all the way to the Championship 4.
While NASCAR’s postseason helped the team flip a switch, Gordon said it hasn’t been just one thing or another.
“It's just a lot of things, a lot of hard work, believing in one another. Luckily I have a team that has confidence in me and believes in me, and no matter what happens,” he said. “(Crew chief) Alan (Gustafson) has done an excellent job keeping that glue together, working extremely hard, being committed to improving things, and that's in all areas. I would attribute it to his leadership, really.”
Hendrick Motorsports owner Rick Hendrick credited all four crew chiefs for their hard work in the Chase. Before the postseason began, Hendrick spoke in front of the entire organization about overcoming adversity and finishing the season on a high note.
Entering the final race of the season, Hendrick Motorsports has won three consecutive events.
“I’m especially proud of the organization for working so closely together,” Hendrick said. “All the crew chiefs and the engineers working and sharing information. Just really the drivers having input. They all like each other, they work together well, but they really stepped it up a notch. The engine shop, chassis shop, aero – everybody. But the key to all that was our crew chiefs, our four crew chiefs really focusing and working together to make all the cars better, and it showed up here in the last five or six weeks.”