Gordon

The revamped No. 31 Cingular Wireless team continued its success with a season-best finish at the New England 300.

Loudon was a very hard-to-drive, one-lane race track Sunday. If you tried to go above the racing groove to pass someone, you were assured of getting into the "marbles" and at least brushing the wall. That happened to us once and we lost about 20 positions.

But Kevin Hamlin and the guys kept encouraging me to stay focused and they made some great pit strategy calls. We took on fuel only during one stop and changed right-side tires only on another stop and gained enough track position to put me in the top-10 when it counted.

We learned that just because a chassis setup worked during qualifying doesn't mean that it would work for the race and we were forced to make a mid-race adjustment. We had to give up a little bit of track position on three pit stops to make chassis adjustments, but the Cingular pit crew did an awesome job and kept me on the lead lap and in contention.

We were loose earlier in the race but then got tight as it went on, so Hamlin made small changes to the car that got it just where it needed to be for a strong run near the end. We picked off a few more positions near the finish and came home seventh, our strongest finish of the season and second-straight top-10 finish for the Cingular team.

I had a lot of close calls Sunday. To get by anybody on the track, you had to be aggressive. Anyone watching the race from home could tell that.

I was trying to work underneath another driver early on in the race. I was cutting across the banking of a turn and the car just jumped out from under me. I saved it but then got a big push from all the "marbles" above the racing line and clobbered the wall pretty hard. But the guys made some great calls later on in the day to get us track position and we were able to pass a few cars during the last 30 laps of the race.

Since Kevin Harvick and I swapped crew chiefs and crews, the Cingular Wireless team has had strong runs to give us three top-11 finishes in those six races. RCR had all three cars inside the top-10 at Loudon and that's a great accomplishment. The Cingular team now has two eighth-place finishes and one seventh-place finish and we just keep improving each week.

I think Pocono is going to be a good weekend for the Cingular Wireless team because we get stronger and more competitive each week. The guys are learning what I need and I'm learning what type of feedback they need from me. It doesn't always happen overnight.

If we can build on these recent experiences, we'll be there at the end of the season and hopefully get to pull this Cingular car into Victory Lane. We've got a saying that you've got to position yourself to run up front. Lately we've been doing that. If you do that enough times, the door will open and you'll find yourself in Victory Lane.

Last month at Pocono was only my second race there and we didn't do too badly, so hopefully I can learn more about the place this time around. Hamlin and his guys ran well at Pocono last year, so I'm confident the Cingular team will be strong there.

Hamlin came within a hair of leading Dale Earnhardt to a victory at Pocono in 2000 before Jeremy Mayfield's infamous move knocked the No. 3 car out of contention on the last lap. These guys know how to get the job done at Pocono and we're hoping to show that again.

The race at Pocono last month was my first race with Kevin Hamlin and his guys. It went much better than most of the outsiders had predicted it would go. We were good from the beginning but had to fight our way through the field because we started based on owner points.

We had about a 10th-place car by the end of the day but we cut the left-front tire down at the end of the race and had to pit under green. I think we just wore it out because we ran it through two runs -- we only took two tires on the last stop. Maybe we wouldn't have lost the tire and lost all those spots if we had taken four tires instead.

I like the style of driving at Pocono because we shift gears so much there. I enjoy shifting because of all the road racing and off-road racing I've done. Shifting is almost more normal for me than not shifting like we're used to in Winston Cup.

Pocono has three unique corners and you have to get through all turns really well in order to be strong. If you're capable of being good in only one turn, you want it to be Turn 3 because it's the last one going onto the long, front straightaway. Turn 3 is a very flat, long, increasing radius turn. It's not a standard, 180-degree turn like we're used to. There's more opportunity to pass on the Pocono frontstretch than at most other tracks.

Kevin Hamlin and I learned some stuff at Sears Point that should help us at Pocono. We'll try some stuff that should improve us a bit and hopefully we can come out of there with a top-10 finish and score some points. If I can finish in the top-20 in the points, it would be good and if we could break into the top-15, it would be a great season for us.

We're trying to let our on-track performance do the talking for us and it seems to be getting the job done. A lot of people outside Richard Childress Racing questioned what Richard was thinking after the crew swap and wondered if he'd lost his mind. I never second-guessed him. Richard got where he is because he's a racer and a smart businessman and leader.

This isn't Richard's first rodeo -- he knows what he's doing. He wanted to improve RCR as a whole and thought that shaking up things a bit would get the job done. We went along with it and look what we've come out with. It looks like we've got a turnaround at RCR.

Robby Gordon drives the No. 31 Cingular Wireless Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing. He will be providing a diary to ESPN.com throughout the Winston Cup season.