Week after week, Matt Kenseth has outrun trouble on the track and brought his No. 17 Ford Taurus to the finish line safely. In fact, he's completed all but two laps so far this year. Meanwhile, Jeff Gordon has experienced the ups and downs most Winston Cup drivers do in a season -- managing enough ups to remain third in the points standings with 15 races remaining. For the most part, he has not become frustrated with his inability to catch Kenseth. But on Friday, after winning the pole position for Sunday's race at the Watkins Glen road course, he did wish grabbing the top spot would have helped him in the standings.

"I like that today," said Gordon, pondering a much debated topic of changing the sports' points system -- with one suggestion being awarding points to the pole sitter. "I don't know about qualifying, but I do think there should be more points to the winner, and if you finish like 40th or something like that, not have those points go against you so much.

"But we run the system the way it is, and I think the points system in Winston Cup racing is one of the most difficult to win. One, it's very competitive. Two, it pays consistency. And when you get your hands around that trophy, you know you've earned it and worked really hard at it. It's very prestigious and I don't want to do anything to tarnish it."

Gordon has won the prestigious award four times. Kenseth hasn't won it once, yet. Perhaps that is why Gordon has been able to stay calm as Kenseth seems to run away with this year's title. Gordon isn't all of a sudden lobbying for more points just because he'll start first Sunday, because he knows anything can happen in 15 races. And he knows, with his stellar record at the road courses, that this is a prime opportunity to make something happen.

"You can't knock what Matt Kenseth and that team is doing right now," he said. "They're doing a great job, performing at a high level and not making any mistakes, and they have cars that last until the finish. That's championship-caliber right there. But it is nice to put some pressure on them. Today you're not really one-upping them because you're not gaining on them in points, but hopefully we can do that to them on Sunday. I think we do need to put some pressure on those guys. I saw an interview that Matt did last week, and they're not really feeling any heat. They've got a really good grasp of things. But I think if we can put some pressure on them and make them think about things, and make some gains there, that will certainly help us out a lot."

Gordon's record on the two road courses NASCAR races on is by far the best in the sport. Meanwhile, Kenseth and Dale Earnhardt Jr., who narrowly edges Gordon for second in the points race, have yet to establish a proficiency at turning right. That gives Gordon a lot of confidence going into Sunday, despite the 318 points that separate him and Kenseth (or the 32 points between him and Junior).

	Gordon has two poles and four wins at Watkins Glen.

"I love the road course, and these guys provide me with such great equipment and race cars that it makes my job easy and a lot of fun," Gordon said. "I like switching it up twice a year on the road courses, going right, braking, shifting and all of that. It seems to be a real challenge and a lot of fun. Everybody has stepped up the competition so much on the road courses the last few years, so we're just happy to be back in form like we were a couple of years ago."

That's because last year Gordon started and finished in the 20s. Not bad in the grand scheme of Winston Cup racing to finish in the 20s at a road course, but Gordon has established himself as one of the more versatile drivers on the circuit. Finishing back there marked a bad finish for him, just as finishing anywhere but first in the points race prompts outsiders to call it a bad year for him. The standards are simply higher.

"Our goal each year is to go to tracks that we struggle at and get better," he said. "This is one that, even though we've been good on road courses and won a lot of races here, we've struggled here the last few years. After we left here last year, we said we're going to go test there."

The test provided Gordon and his No. 24 Chevy team a chance to find out what was ailing the program at the track. But it also gave Gordon valuable track time, which, in the end, might have been what he needed more than anything.

"Getting laps for me was very beneficial," he said. "I had a lot of trouble getting into (Turn) 1 here during our test. It really took me about a day and a half to really get comfortable going into Turn 1. So if we hadn't tested and we just came here, I probably wouldn't have been able to drive into Turn 1 the way I did in qualifying, so I think the test paid off a lot for me as well.

"... It's nice when it pays of like it has so far. But this is only half the battle. This is an important part because track position is so important here, so that was big. Now we really need to get it hooked up for the race setup."

Gordon's got his comfort zone in his race car and on the race track right now. And the game plan hasn't changed since he started winning here in the mid-1990s. So he doesn't mind giving away his strategy for Sunday's race -- to him, it's never been a secret, anyway. It's just been a matter of him employing it better than anyone else -- which he plans to do Sunday.

"You attack it under braking," he said. "It's really just how hard you drive into the corners. That's the places that you really get in trouble. If you drive in really, really deep you have a shot of maybe over-braking or overdriving in there and missing the corner, or you have a chance of wheel-hopping, especially going into 1. You've got to make up your mind right away and decide how fast and how hard you're going to hit it.

"I got in there pretty hard and the car stuck for me, so I think the crucial part of my lap was getting into 1 and getting through the esses. From there on out it was about the same laps that I had run all day long. When the car handled good through there, I knew I had a shot at (the pole). I had to be aggressive and smooth at the same time, and then it was just a nail-biter, the drama of the rain possibly coming and cars that still had a chance of beating us.

"We were just sitting in the lounge running all of these scenarios through our minds. Last week we were praying for rain because we were so far off (in qualifying), but this week I was doing the non-rain dance."

And it worked. Track position is important at Watkins Glen and Gordon's got the best track position of all. But what's more important at this curvy venue is confidence and know-how; and Gordon's got a lot of both of those, too.

Rupen Fofaria is a freelance writer and a regular contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at rfofaria@espnspecial.com.