Gordon

The final race of the 2002 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season built up to a crescendo the past few weeks with an especially tight run for the championship and a close battle for all the teams in the top 20. The No. 31 Cingular Wireless team also put a lot of stock in the final race and the momentum you can gain for next season with a strong run in the last race of the year. But we're going to have to rely on the preparation we put into the off-season and the talent of all of us involved to gain that momentum, since we struggled Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

I'd never raced in a Winston Cup race at Homestead before and hadn't even made a lap on the track in anything but an Indy car. And that was before the track was reconfigured a few years ago. So, I had to slowly pick my way around Homestead the first few laps Friday to learn the lay of the land. But experience doesn't always matter if the car doesn't handle well and the Cingular team started having some handling problems Friday in practice. Qualifying was tough for us and we ended up taking a provisional for Sunday's 400-mile race. But we didn't let it get us down and threw ourselves into our work on the race setup Saturday during practice.

Despite being the final race of the season, Sunday's event was very important to everyone at Richard Childress Racing (RCR) because it was the final race for Danny "Chocolate" Myers as a gasman. Chocolate has fueled Chevrolets for RCR for 17 years and was part of the six championships the late Dale Earnhardt won with RCR. So, Sunday was also Chocolate's day.

We started the race on a totally green race track after torrential rain and thunderstorms pounded the Homestead area Saturday evening, followed up with light rain most of Sunday morning. Green race tracks often create slick, hazardous driving conditions due to lack of tire rubber on the track. Sunday was no different, as the 267-lap event opened with an accident on the second lap.

The Cingular Wireless team made an early attempt to set ourselves up for a fuel mileage race by pitting for fuel only during that caution period because we were running about 38th at the time, anyway. I returned to the track in the 41st position. The car was tight but I was still able to get up to the 33rd spot by lap 20. Team Cingular opted for some drastic chassis adjustments that took a little more time during a yellow-flag pit stop on lap 63. We returned to the track in the 35th position but were soon posting lap times as fast as the top-five cars.

	Robby Gordon finished the season 20th in Winston Cup points.

Although we were good at the beginning of a run, we began to have handling problems several laps into the run. The RCR machine developed a loose condition exiting the turns and my crew chief Kevin Hamlin worked on improving it during the next couple of pit stops. We worked our way up to the 29th position by lap 114, but the sun began to peek from behind the clouds for the first time since Friday and gave us a whole new set of challenges concerning the setup. The Cingular team continued to adjust on the car throughout the race and we moved into the 28th spot by lap 201. The car was the best it had been all day at that point and we were again as fast as the leader.

I picked my way through a couple of late-race accidents that brought out the final caution periods of the day and slipped on oil dropped by a car that had just blown a motor. I almost lost it but managed to steer the Cingular car straight before another car tagged me from behind. But we held our ground and made a routine pit stop a few laps later for four tires, fuel and air pressure adjustments. That was to be Chocolate Myers' final pit stop of his 17-year career as a gasman. NBC came into the pits to interview him and the team doused him with a cooler of water after the interview. Those guys have worked with Chocolate for years and love him to death. He's a great teammate and a wonderful spokesman for RCR and the sport. But most importantly, Chocolate is a great friend to many people. He would do anything for anyone.

We got back to racing after that pit stop and concentrated on passing cars. We picked off a couple and crossed the finish line in the 26th position. That finish secured our 20th position in the 2002 NASCAR Winston Cup points championship.

Homestead was a tough weekend for the Cingular team. It wasn't how we wanted to end the season. We were hoping for a really strong finish in the final race to gain some momentum heading into Daytona next year. But all the RCR teams struggled at Homestead.

We've got a new Chevrolet Monte Carlo for next year and we're working hard on testing and tweaking it to make it just as competitive as the Fords, Dodges and Pontiacs were this year. We think we're going to really have something for them next year on the race track. But all in all, the Cingular team had a respectable season. No, we didn't meet all the goals we had set but we had some really good runs and would have been even higher in the points if we hadn't gotten involved in other drivers' wrecks earlier in the year. The Cingular Wireless team will take what we've learned this year and put it toward next year so we're strong out of the box at Daytona in February.

The Baja 1000 is next on my agenda. The 1,017-mile race starts Thursday in Baja California, Mexico. I flew straight there from Miami Sunday evening and am pre-running my Baja truck for a few hours Monday. Then it's time to get ready for the race. It's about a 16 or 17 hour race and I'm going to try to get a little rest before it starts. I'll tell you all about it next week.

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.