Gordon

The dreaded but always expected "Big One" took place on the last lap of the race and the Lowe's Chevy was one of the victims. It was an extremely disappointing ending to the nail-biting 500-mile race, because Robby had driven his guts out the whole time.

As competitive as the Lowe's car was during the race, it wasn't that way the whole weekend. Friday didn't start out that well for us. We were pretty bad during the first practice and couldn't seem to get up to the speed of the other cars on the track. At one point, the Lowe's machine was two seconds slower than the fastest car, which is a tremendous difference. So, we changed the gear, adjusted the track bar and changed some shocks and springs. None of that helped at all, so we opted to change the engine at the end of practice in preparation for the qualifying session and see if that picked up any speed for us.

We were the 16th of 45 cars to hit the track for our qualifying lap that afternoon. Robby hit all his marks on the track but it still wasn't a fast lap. We were forced to use a provisional starting spot and we would line up for the green flag in the 39th position. When qualifying was finished, we all sat around and talked about what the problem with the car was.

We had tested it at the wind tunnel after rebuilding it following the July Daytona race. Mike Skinner had raced the same car in the Daytona 500, Bud Shootout, the first Talladega race and the July race at Daytona. But he got wrecked at Daytona in July and we had to completely reconstruct the car, so we took it to the wind tunnel to see how it measured up. This car had been competitive all year and we just couldn't figure out why it was so slow in qualifying. We decided to concentrate on getting the car ready to race and planned to dissect it at the shop to see if we could find any indication as to why it wasn't good in qualifying trim.

We put the Lowe's Chevrolet in race trim for Saturday morning's first practice and let Robby work on drafting. We immediately learned that the car was better in race trim than in qualifying set-up and that we'd have no problem running up front Sunday. We ran several laps, changed the gear, worked on the shocks a bit and then went back out on the track.

We were pretty happy with the car when that practice was complete. Happy Hour was run 30 minutes following the first practice and the Lowe's machine was even better then. Robby posted the second-fastest lap of the session in Happy Hour and we knew we had a good race car for Sunday.

Robby took the green flag Sunday to begin the 188-lap event and patiently drafted with the other cars until he got in the top-10. He was in the top five at about lap 120 but just like the other guys, he'd get shuffled back and then work his way back up through the field. We were really impressed with the way Robby used the draft to his advantage and he showed extreme patience.

Robby doesn't have a lot of experience on superspeedways and Sunday was an extremely intense race, just like the April race at Talladega was. Robby ran a great race all day long for the Lowe's team and we couldn't have asked for anything more from him.

We made it all the way to the last lap of the race and were pretty sure we were going to finish in the top 10 until the "Big One" finally came. Everyone always talks about the "big wreck" at Talladega that involves numerous cars. It's always expected every single time we race there. It waited until the final lap of the EA Sports 500 and started with Bobby Labonte and Bobby Hamilton. When it was all over, about 16 cars were wrecked and the Lowe's Chevy was one of them.

Robby got hit from behind and spun into the wall. He lost a lot of track position, but got the car turned around and drove it across the finish line and into the 19th position. It wasn't the finish that Lowe's Racing was looking for but we are confident that we had a good car and did everything we could do for a strong finish. We also gained a position in the NASCAR Winston Cup point standings.

We flew from Talladega to Homestead, Fla., to test at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Monday and Tuesday with Jeff Green. Jeff is going to drive the Lowe's car at Homestead because Robby will be racing in the Baja race that weekend. We also threw Johnny Sauter in the Lowe's car for a little while at Homestead just to give him some extra seat time before he competes in the Busch race at Homestead.

The Winston Cup teams race at Phoenix this weekend. Robby's experience at Phoenix is limited, but just like he's proved lately, that doesn't mean he won't be competitive. Phoenix is a fairly flat track but it's not very big. Robby is used to driving flat tracks from his Indy car days, but he's not used to tracks like Phoenix that are only about one-mile long. We'll approach Phoenix like every other track lately -- we'll take it slow at first and let Robby get acclimated and we'll give him the best race car we can. Robby can take it from there.