Gordon

A lot of success in NASCAR can be attributed to momentum and the No. 31 Cingular Wireless team definitely had a lot of momentum going into Michigan last weekend. We had scored four top-10 finishes in the last five races and one of those was our season-best third-place effort at Watkins Glen, N.Y.

So, we had a little air let of our balloon Sunday at Michigan when we didn't match what we've been doing on the track lately. But we're going to Bristol, Tenn., this weekend and we sat on the outside pole there in March. Maybe this will be our breakthrough weekend.

We were at the mercy of the weather Friday. Practice was scheduled for 11 a.m., but it was pouring rain about that time. After watching it rain for hours, the Busch teams finally took to the track for practice and the Winston Cup teams went out at 3 p.m. Talk about a long day -- we didn't get to starting qualifying until about 6:40 p.m. and it didn't end until about 8 p.m.

But it was worth the wait and we were good enough for the fifth starting spot, which is great for me at Michigan. My teammate Kevin Harvick and his GM Goodwrench Service team qualified on the outside pole, while Jeff Green took the 15th spot.

That just goes to further show how well the Richard Childress Racing has come together and improved in the past few weeks. A lot of the other manufacturers were saying the Chevrolets were at an advantage due to the one-inch increase in the front air dam for Michigan. But I didn't really feel much of a difference with the change on the nose. The Cingular team tested at Michigan 10 days before the race and I think that's why we qualified well. Michael Waltrip started on the front row last time we were there and he shared his notes with his teammates at DEI, who were able to come back and capitalize on that.

Racing in Detroit is definitely a manufacturer's battle. I've seen that coming for a long time there -- even in Indy cars. Everybody wants to win in Motor City on Sunday.

We weren't as good in Happy Hour on Saturday as we were in qualifying. We had a 45-minute practice that morning and then Happy Hour one hour later. Kevin Hamlin (crew chief) and the Cingular guys worked hard on making the car better, changed the spring package and the swaybar and got me to where I was more comfortable in the car.

We were pretty confident about our chances of a good finish Sunday when the race started, but we were also a bit apprehensive because of the change in weather conditions. Sunday was very sunny, without a cloud in the sky, while Friday and Saturday had been rainy and cloudy.

Weather changes always affect how the car handles and it certainly didn't help us when the race started. The Cingular Wireless Chevrolet was loose in and tight off the corners from the beginning of the race. Hamlin and the Cingular crew patiently worked on it throughout the race, but we just couldn't seem to get it where we needed it to be. We had trouble running with the leaders and stayed in the top 25 most of the day.

Michigan often ends up being a fuel mileage race and we thought that would be our best chance of a top-10 finish. We pitted under caution on lap 144 of 200 laps for four tires and fuel, then pitted again to top off the fuel on lap 147 before the restart was given. We knew we could probably go the rest of the race on fuel at that point and knew that a lot of the other teams couldn't. That strategy helped us out in the short run when the caution waved on lap 163. Team Cingular stayed out while others pitted and we were second when the restart was given with 32 laps to go.

Team Cingular would have been much better off without that last caution because the other guys would still have had to pit for fuel, but if it was under green, they wouldn't have had the opportunity to get new tires. It was a great call by Kevin and the Cingular crew because it got us a lot of track position. I thought it was going to be the call of the day, but we just couldn't keep up with the other cars that had new tires on that last restart. We had older tires than the rest of the field and the car was still a little tight and hard to steer. We kept the Cingular car in the top-10 until lap 190 but couldn't hold off the hard-chargers with fresh tires. We lost a lot of positions in the closing laps and finished the race 21st.

	Robby Gordon is currently 22nd in the series standings.

While Michigan often ends up being a fuel mileage race, Bristol certainly isn't. Bristol is a survival track and track position is everything. That starts with the beginning of the race. Qualifying is crucial at Bristol and you need to start near the front because it's such a short track that you can get lapped very quickly. Well, I proved that starting on the front row doesn't necessarily mean you're going to stay up front. Jeff Gordon snookered me coming to the green flag and I jumped the start to take the lead. I went from second to 43rd before three laps were on the board.

You see more drivers lose their cool at Bristol than probably any other race of the year. That's mostly because we run so close together and so fast that it's like a demolition derby out there. You can be minding your own business out there and the next thing you know, someone has jacked your car up and put you in the wall. But at Bristol, you don't stay in the wall long -- you start sliding down the banking to the apron of the track. Until last March, I think someone wrecked me every time I went to Bristol. But that's Bristol. It's about survival and finishing.

Five-hundred laps is a lot anywhere, but it's really a handful at Bristol. Your team can put more work and effort into the Bristol race than any other team and still end up dead last at the end. Bristol is about clawing your way through the race to still be running when it's all over, but it's also about luck and being in the right place at the right time. Too often, it's about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You can be leading one moment and the next minute staring the fence straight in the face. Then your guys are loading your car onto the hauler to go home early.

Most of the tracks we run on are asphalt, but Bristol is concrete. There's a big difference between an asphalt track and a concrete track as far as a car's grip is concerned. The track temperature doesn't seem to change as much on concrete because it's not a black surface that draws in the heat and makes a slicker surface. Concrete creates a more equal qualifying environment for everyone because the qualifying draw doesn't matter as much based on the time of day.

One of the good things for the Cingular team at Bristol this weekend is that it's my second trip back to the track this year. At the beginning of the season, there were several tracks I'd only raced on a couple of times. The more seat time I get at these tracks, the better we seem to be each weekend. It has really helped me as a driver this year to have a little more experience at some of these places and it helps Kevin to know what I liked the first time at these tracks and to take those notes back with him the next time.

But if this weekend comes together like most of our recent weekends, Kevin and his crew's experience, combined with my eagerness to learn and drive the car as hard as I can, should give us a pretty good finish at Bristol. And if you come out of Bristol with a top-10 finish, you had a pretty good day. Hopefully, the Cingular team will have a very good day at Bristol.

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.