Gordon

Chassis setup is the key to success at any track. That's just a given. The part that's tricky is finding the correct setup and then adjusting during the race to keep the car in balance throughout the day.

While the No. 31 Cingular Wireless team was never quite able to find that balance Sunday at Kansas Speedway, we were still able to stay up on the wheel and bring our Chevrolet home in 13th. And though we never found the perfect setup, it definitely wasn't for lack of trying.

The Cingular Chevy was tight as soon as the green flag waved. My crew chief, Kevin Hamlin, called for chassis adjustments during the first caution, on lap five, after a 10-car pile-up. The car was still a little tight but we worked our way to the front, moving into 13th by lap 35.

We were seventh by lap 50, but the car was starting to get loose coming off the corners. It felt like the rear end of the car wanted to come out from underneath me when I got back on the gas exiting the turns. Not a good feeling.

A two-tire stop on lap 75 fixed the loose condition but we went a bit too far, and were soon too tight off the turns. After a sequence of pit stops, Jeremy Mayfield seemed to think that I was supposed to be behind him during the caution laps and pushed our car up the track. That pushed the left-front fender in a bit, increasing the tightness in the car. We dropped all the way to 24th by lap 134.

My pit crew gave me great pit stops the second half of the race that helped us get back to 13th by the time a red flag came out with six laps to go. The guys were on it Sunday and picked up positions for me almost every time I pitted. Although we weren't able to make up any more ground in the closing laps, we gained one position in the standings to 19th and are only 66 points behind 18th-place Bobby Labonte.

It's time for the last major nail-biting race of the season this weekend -- Talladega Superspeedway. The fans love Talladega and Daytona, but it's pretty safe to say the drivers don't feel the same way. That is definitely a nerve-wracking, stressful race for the 43 competitors.

And especially since Dale Jr.'s announcement last week that he was hurt for a while but kept driving, safety seems to be the front issue again. Safety is always the number one priority at Richard Childress Racing. I'm using the PPI composite seat for the first time this weekend at Talladega. I'm pretty excited about that. All the guys at RCR worked hard on getting the seat in the car and ready to go. It's not as easy as just bolting any other seat into a car. It took a little more R& D work than that.

	Robby Gordon is close to completing his first full season with Richard Childress Racing.

The engineers and crew chiefs at RCR wanted to have their input to make sure the seat was going to be installed correctly. The guys had to cut the transmission tunnel out of the right side for the leg brace to fit down in there. The transmission tunnel is the place under the car that the transmission fits into. The seat would have fit in around the leg brace but the seat and the whole package need the leg brace to support it, so we had to modify our transmission tunnels a little bit.

We may be giving up a competitive edge in order to have a safer seat. I hope that modifying the tunnel won't hurt us on the superspeedways, because the flow of air through the transmission tunnel is going to be restricted by one inch by 10 inches. That's 10 square inches less of air going through there. Air goes through the radiator, through the engine, through the transmission tunnel, then under the fuel cell under the car and then exits. Cars have more drag if you restrict that air, so we're probably going to be fighting that battle with the Cingular car.

Essentially, the guys carved out a bigger space in the floor of the car and under the car to be able to insert the seat. There's less space on the floor around the shifter and around my legs now because the seat takes up more room.

But everyone at RCR is committed to safety for the drivers and the cars, no matter how much work it takes. Installing that seat took a completely different frame rail and different mounting structure. It's a lot different than the regular seat. Hopefully, we'll give it the thumbs-up after Talladega and continue racing it at the bigger tracks like Michigan, Atlanta, Las Vegas and Homestead. Hopefully we can run it at some other tracks before the season is up.

The 13-gallon fuel cells should paint an interesting picture this weekend at Talladega. Everyone has their guess about what will happen but nobody really knows. NASCAR is trying to avoid the big accidents like Talladega always has. They're hoping to have more green-flag pit stops that will spread the field out more. If the racing is cleaner and safer, it could definitely come down to a fuel mileage race. Then it's a question of who has better fuel mileage. Hopefully it's the Cingular team.

But with these smaller fuel cells, pit stops just took on a huge role. My guys have really got to be on top of their game this weekend. This is going to be a big challenge for all the over-the-wall guys. They'll have to change tires faster than they've ever done because the fuel is going to go in a lot faster. I think you'll see teams staying on the same set of tires or taking just two tires to keep track position. Track position is so important because if you have a bad stop and end up returning to the track without any partners to run with, you're screwed. You'll be running on the track by yourself until the field comes back around, passes and laps you.

I saw the field pass and lap me at Daytona last July after Kurt Busch rammed into the car on pit road and severely damaged our car. That was the same car we're taking to Talladega. The car was great and we were running up front at the time, came in for a routine pit stop and Busch clocked us going into his pit stall. The guys did a great job repairing the car but we lost a few laps in the process. When we got back on the track, we were running by ourselves for a while and the pack just blasts by you in that case.

But I'm very excited about going back to Talladega. We qualified on the outside pole in April and had a good car until the Big One at the end of the race got us. But we've had great cars at superspeedways lately. The engine shop has been doing a super job of putting good horsepower under me, which is crucial at Talladega. But even with all we've got going for us going into Talladega, we've got to stay out of the Big One. Maybe these new, smaller fuel cells will help with that. We'll just have to wait and see.

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