You’d think by now, every oh-so-close victory that slipped away for Jeff Gordon would have added up into a flood of negative emotion.
Jeff Gordon’s Surprising Postrace Reaction
↵And after yet another defeat on Saturday night at Richmond – especially following the frustrations of recent weeks with his teammate Jimmie Johnson – it wouldn’t have been unexpected to see Gordon get angry in his postrace interviews.
↵He didn’t. Instead, he gave every indication that he was upbeat about his team’s performance, positive that the No. 24 had greatly improved over last year and was optimistic for the rest of the season.
↵“We’re way ahead of where we were last year,” he said. ”...Other than the win column, I feel like we’re dominating races at times, we’re leading laps pretty much everywhere we go. ... Everything is going good, other than getting the win.
↵“I’m extremely happy with the way things are going.”
↵Although his team finished third in points last year, Gordon said the whole group has made “huge strides” in performance and competitiveness, citing not only the amount of laps led but noting they’ve come at a variety of different tracks.
↵Gordon has already led a series-high 599 laps through 10 races this season (by far the most of any driver). He led 827 all of last year.
↵So for Gordon, there’s reason to believe a win is coming soon, despite the bad breaks.
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↵↵"I've been doing this long enough to know that they don't give out trophies for leading any lap other than the last one," he said. "Yeah, it's a little disappointing we haven't won some races yet. If we keep doing this, those will come."
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