LAS VEGAS -- There was less excitement than relief for crew chief Robbie Loomis when Jeff Gordon took the checkered flag last year at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

It was more than just a win for Gordon in only the third race of the season. For Loomis, it meant that his team had finally put it all together.

	Jeff Gordon's win last year as Las Vegas kicked off his chase for a fourth Winston Cup championship.

Before that showing, Gordon had only one top-15 finish -- a third in 1999 -- in three starts on the 1½-mile oval.

Worse, the previous year -- Loomis' first with the team -- was actually an embarrassment for Rick Hendrick's elite unit.

"We finished 28th in this race in 2000 in only my third race as Jeff Gordon's crew chief," Loomis said. "We have the best driver on the planet and yet we ran poorly.

"That was a long trip home to Charlotte, especially when you're sitting next to Mr. Hendrick."

Last year, Gordon qualified a disappointing 24th, but worked his way to the front.

"Jeff moved his way up through the field while we kept adjusting the car during pit stops," Loomis said. "Things really came together that day and I think it showed in our results the rest of the way."

Gordon, who had struggled through two seasons without contending for a title, went on to post five more wins and drive away with his fourth series championship.

Both Loomis and Gordon are hoping for another victory Sunday in the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400.

Gordon enters the race fourth in the points, only 38 behind series leader Sterling Marlin. Gordon, starting the season with two top-10 finishes for the first time since 1997, will use the same Monte Carlo in which he won last year's inaugural event in Kansas City, Kan.

"We turned our whole program around here last year," Gordon said. "A lot of it had to do with the momentum that came out of that event.

"To have struggled here in the past and win the race really pumped this team up for the remainder of the year. We feel we're in a good position to get the same kind of effort on Sunday."

Marlin, who finished third in the points last year, said he doesn't want to get too excited, yet, even though his Dodge has finished eighth and third in the first two races. He's the only driver besides Gordon with two top-10 finishes.

"If we kept doing that we could darn sure win the championship, but it's a long season," Marlin said. "It's way, way too early to start talking about the championship, but we've got a good start out of the gate.

"We got close last year, but we had some bad luck along the way. We're going to keep working hard and try to stay focused and see what happens."

Another happy man, so far, is team owner Jack Roush, who has four drivers in the top 11 in the points.

Roush's entire team struggled through much of 2001.

"We kept telling ourselves all last year, when one bad thing would happen after another, that we were a better race team than that," Roush said.

Somehow, his multicar team never got untracked last year, with Jeff Burton and Mark Martin -- both expected to be Winston Cup championship contenders -- working hard just to be competitive.

Burton finally came on strong at the end of the season and finished 10th in points, but Martin wound up a very uncompetitive 12th, Matt Kenseth was 13th and then-rookie Kurt Busch 27th. Martin had not finished worse than eighth in the points before last year since 1988.

Among them, they came up with just two wins -- both by Burton -- and 18 top-five finishes over the 36-race season -- easily the worst showing for Roush's team since 1996.

Now, heading into Sunday's race, it appears the bleak times might be over for Roush's talented group of drivers.

Among them, they already have a win -- by Kenseth last Sunday in Rockingham, N.C. -- and four top-10 finishes.

Still, Roush is cautious.

"This is going to be a long year, and to be able to have a good start, rather than the start we had last year, it's going to let me sleep good this week," he said.