Jeff Gordon in unfamiliar role of championship underdog

Nothing suggests Jeff Gordon is on the cusp of a fifth Sprint Cup championship in this his final season before retirement. With exception of a few races, he largely struggled during the regular season and his performance hasn’t been much better in the postseason where most weeks it’s been a fight just to finish in the back half of the top 10.

Yet, with the semifinal round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup set to begin Sunday at Martinsville Speedway, Gordon is one of eight drivers still in title contention. A group that doesn’t include Matt Kenseth or Jimmie Johnson, who each four regular season races, nor Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Denny Hamlin, who’ve demonstrated a higher level of consistency than Gordon’s No. 24 team.

Gordon has advanced this far in NASCAR’s playoffs by a tried-and-true approach that seemingly had been minimized in an era where winning automatically moves a driver to the next round. While the 44-year-old may not be running up front and leading laps with any regularity, what he has done is avoid crippling gaffes and maximized his finishes nearly every week.

And that has turned what had been a season-long farewell where the only celebrations honoring Gordon came in pre-race ceremonies into something that has the potential to be something straight out of a fairy tale.

“I can’t imagine it,” Gordon said. “That’s why I haven’t allowed myself to really go there -- there’s too much racing left to happen. You can’t help but get a smile on your face that we made it further than maybe we even anticipated. It gives you that feeling that, ‘Hey, maybe this could be our year.’”

From the beginning of the Chase, Gordon’s goal was to qualify for the third round, a three-race bracket that sets up quite favorably and gives credence that he could transfer to the championship finale next month at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Only teammate Johnson has as many Martinsville victories as Gordon, whose 6.9 average finish is tops in NASCAR’s modern era (1972-to-present). A perennial threat to win anytime he turns a wheel on the Virginia short track, Gordon was leading the April race with 36 laps to go when he incurred a penalty for speeding down pit road.

Then comes Texas Motor Speedway where he finished seventh in the spring, followed by Phoenix International Raceway, where he placed a ninth in April and a runner-up last fall.

That Gordon punches his ticket to Homestead by winning Sunday is not a farfetched scenario, neither is him continuing to employ the same strategy he’s used thus far -- gritting out top-10s while other contenders implode via self-induced blunders -- and pointing his way to the championship round.

“That grind and that fight that we have in us is what we’ve been putting out there these last six weeks that have gotten us to this round,” Gordon said. “Now we get to continue that fight and grind, but we get to go do it at some tracks that we legitimately have a shot at competing for wins.”

But make no mistake Gordon remains a longshot against bevy of heavyweights. Foremost are Joey Logano, who completed a Round 2 sweep to give himself a series-best wins, and defending Sprint Cup champion Kevin Harvick, whose combination of speed and moxie make him a tough out in the knockout Chase format.

“I don’t see Jeff Gordon winning it this year,” Kyle Busch said. “I just don’t see him going to Homestead and being able to beat the 4 (Harvick), the 22 (Logano) right now. If it turns into more of a circus at Homestead, then possibly, he’s got a good shot at it.”

Fully recognizing his own weaknesses, Gordon doesn’t disagree with Busch’s assessment.

To win his first title since 2001, Gordon will either need to show improved performance or hope things resemble the chaos that ensured during the closing laps of last Sunday’s Round 2 elimination at Talladega Superspeedway. Anything short and a fifth championship is unlikely to materialize.

“We have not shown the strength that other teams have that are still in this thing,” Gordon said. “We’ve not been the dominant cars and team. I hope after this round that changes. I think if we can run strong at Martinsville, and we run strong at Texas, we make it through this round, I think people will think different. But up to this point we’re definitely the underdog.”

Nonetheless, Gordon is embracing the role he’s not often played throughout a storied career that unequivocally will earn him first-ballot enshrinement into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Because at the very least he’s given himself a shot and come the playoffs, sometimes that’s all you need.

“We never stop fighting and grinding,” Gordon said. “That’s what we’ve had to do. We seem to really do a great job being consistent and getting the best finish. That’s what we’ve been certainly doing in the Chase.

“If we do that for three more weeks, I think we make it to Homestead.”