CONCORD, N.C. -- After starting last weekend's race at Kansas Speedway sixth, Jeff Gordon slowly began falling back in the pack.
“Absolutely horrible," he said of how the No. 24 team ran early at Kansas. "We were absolutely as far off as you could be."
For the duration of the race, Gordon had average running position of nearly 16th, spending portions of the event outside of the top 20. But the driver and the rest of the No. 24 team didn't stop working.
And when the checkered flag waved, Gordon had earned a top-10 finish.
"Extremely proud of the team for never giving up and fighting so hard," Gordon said. "That was one of the hardest top-10s I’ve ever had to go through."
As one reporter put it after the race, Gordon made lemonade out of lemons.
"Lately we've been doing a lot of that," he said.
And he has a sixth-place position in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings to show for it.
After this Sunday's race at Talladega Superspeedway, eight drivers will advance to the Eliminator Round of the postseason. Gordon is seven points ahead of ninth place, which would be the first of four drivers eliminated. He is also just six points behind third place, and trails second place by 11.
Still, he won't count on any breathing room as he heads to a track where he is tied with Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. for the most wins among active drivers with six.
“Every point means something; it just doesn’t mean anything as far as our approach for Talladega," he said. "I’m real confident in our race cars and our race team. I’m excited about our chances at actually winning there. I just don’t like the chances of being in a wreck because they are usually high, but we are going to go and approach it where we are going to be aggressive and race hard.
"We will just see where the points end up.”