rpm.espn.com: Nadeau has shot at strong finish

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Saturday, August 11
Nadeau has shot at strong finish
By Jonathan Baum
ESPN.com

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. -- Teammates Dale Jarrett and Ricky Rudd starting first and second in Sunday's Global Crossing at the Glen while holding two of the top three spots in the Winston Cup standings speaks volumes for the Robert Yates Racing team.

But while Jeff Gordon's resurgence in 2001 has him sitting atop the points standings and primed to claim his fourth Winston Cup championship, his Hendrick Motorsports teammates have been left in his wake, despite Rick Hendrick's want for the teams to be equal.

"We don't have a first-, second- or third-tier team. We are one big unit with three cars," said Hendrick, who has owned a Winston Cup team since 1984. "The level of competition in NASCAR Winston Cup racing is getting stronger, so we've got to focus all the resources in our operation to keep pace with the record we've had in the past."


	All three of Gordon's titles have come with Hendrick.

Hendrick has claimed four Winston Cup titles as an owner, but only Gordon has a reasonable shot this season at providing Hendrick with championship No. 5.

Jerry Nadeau, who ended the 2000 season -- his first driving for Hendrick -- in Atlanta with his first career win, has been searching for consistency all season. The No. 25 UAW-Delphi car does have five top-10 finishes this season, but Nadeau has failed to crack the top 20 in each of his last four races.

"We have had a challenging season so far, but we are looking forward to going back to these tracks during the second half of the season," said Nadeau, who is currently 22nd in the points standings. "We have learned a lot about the new Goodyear tire, so the remainder of this year should be much more successful for Team 25."

Nadeau has a good shot at getting back on track, having qualified third for Sunday's race.

"It was a pretty good lap," said Nadeau, who was 27th-fastest during Happy Hour. "We were 15th in practice, (so) we made a few changes to the car to make it turn better. It was a decent lap considering we went out early.

"It seemed like the track was really slick at first, at least when I went out. Maybe if we went out later we might have had a better run, but I am happy with third."

For qualifying, Nadeau left it all out on the track.

"When you put on your qualifying face you tend to get pretty much everything out of the car. I got everything out of the car."

Preparation and experience might payoff for the Danbury, Conn., native come Sunday.

"We tested at Virginia International Raceway to get ready for Watkins Glen. We worked on transmissions, we broke in some new brake pads and rotors -- we just basically got our Watkins Glen car ready to go for the race. We had a good run last year until we broke the shifter (leading to a 38th-place finish) so I think we'll be able to go back there and do really well this year.

Gordon's other teammate, two-time Winston Cup champion Terry Labonte, has notched just two top-10s this season and has cracked the top-20 only once in his last eight races (last week's 19th-place finish at the Brickyard 400).

And Sunday's forecast might not be any better.

Labonte, who is 27th in Cup points, was the final car to qualify on time and will start 36th. Labonte's practice times were also near the back of the pack, though he does have four Busch Series victories at Watkins Glen despite having never won a Cup race on the road course. His best finish was second, in 1987 and 1996.

Labonte did not compete in this event last season, having missed the race while recovering from injuries suffered at Daytona International Speedway a month earlier.

Hendrick would like nothing more than to see all three of his cars finish near the front.

Said Hendrick, "Once you've been on top, you want to stay there."

Room to move?
Gordon, who particularly dislikes running in traffic, will have some ground to make up. Gordon will start 13th on Sunday.

"I don't know how quick (we'll get to the front), and I don't know how important it is to get up there quick. We've got a great race car, but we've got to get it to the end," said Gordon, who holds a 160-point lead over Jarrett.

"I think we'll use similar strategy to last week's race in Indianapolis, which is also a tough place to pass. The strategy is to take all 90 (laps). We just used the whole race to work our way up into position. Hopefully we'll find ourselves in a situation to take a top-5 or a win. I think right now we just want to make sure we've got a car that's good enough to win, and we certainly showed that in Happy Hour (by posting the fourth-best time). This is a place that I feel like we can make some passes, but one at a time and lap to lap. I'm not in a big hurry."

Despite starting outside the top-10, Gordon thinks his prospects of moving through the field are better at Watkins Glen than they were at the Brickyard 400 last week, where he won from the 27th spot.

"Last week, we were starting quite a bit further back. And Indianapolis is even harder to pass on than Watkins Glen. I think we are in better position here this weekend than we were last weekend and we're running better than we were last weekend. We really weren't that great in Happy Hour last weekend, (but) we made some big adjustments during the race and then got the track position. That's what won the race. If we can get that kind of track position late in the race, we've got a shot to win this thing."

Gordon benefited from a caution thrown in the middle of a pit-stop cycle last week for debris on the track. Steve Park and Rusty Wallace were among the leaders who were shuffled back resulting from the caution.

"Sometimes (positioning) happens by luck, like it did last weekend. It just so happened that the caution came out at the perfect time for us.

"I think we've got the car to beat here in the race, but we've got to get it up further to the front. How do we do that? I don't know. I don't think it's going to be like last week where we see ourselves falling back at the beginning of the race., I think you're going to see us start to come forward. But I want to have the same strategy where we don't need to be there until it counts, and that's at the end."

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