Nascar Driver - Robby Gordon - His Own Man

"But that," Kerr adds with a smile, "can also be the worst part of working for Robby Gordon."

The shop has the energy of a bunch of buddies building dirt track cars for the local bullring, with everyone hustling and having to work around everyone else.

"It's pretty close quarters," says Arden."It's a good thing everyone gets along, especially given the amount of time we spend together."

Gordon already has plans to expand his Charlotte, North Carolina, complex, making it about four times the size it is today. He hopes to add a second car as soon as they can put together a package to take to potential sponsors.

"That's the key to success," says Story. "The second car will double what we can learn and how fast we can learn it."

Single-car teams are at a distinct disadvantage-in time, talent, and financial resources-in developing a winning package.

Alba Colon, who heads GM's involvement in NASCAR, says Chevrolet shares information it develops with each of its contract teams.

"So Robby gets wind tunnel information and other data we come up with," she says. "But they won't get any information a team develops on its own. That stays within the team. The more cars a team has, the more data it can develop."

Gordon is something of a one-man, multicar team. He never stops developing as a driver or owner.

"People say I have too many outside interests, like the off-road stuff," he says, "but the off-road team is a separate business that makes its own profit. I realized early on that if I wanted to race for a living, I'd have to market myself every way I could.

"On off weekends, drivers go hunting or fishing or, in the case of Greg Biffle, escape to a forested hideout. Jeff Gordon plays golf or goes diving. When Robby Gordon isn't racing . . . he's off racing.

Off-road bikes. Sports cars. The Baja or the Paris-Dakar, often called the world's toughest test of man and machine.

"Robby does nothing but race," says Story. "He may be out in the desert, but he'll come back with an idea they tried on the off-road truck that he thinks we should look at on the Cup car."

Robby Gordon was stuck. His Hummer was somewhere in the African desert. It was dark and cold. The night was filled with strange sounds and smells. Gordon was frightened.

He and his co-driver/navigator were running across the sand after dark when the race truck jumped a dune and landed on a huge clump of "camel grass." The impact damaged the truck beyond what they could repair that night.

He calls the Dakar Rally-which tested him as a driver and as a team organizer-the most challenging of all motorsports events.

"It's like driving a 500-mile race every day for 16 days," he says. "It's not like a racetrack where you go around the same corners over and over again. In the desert, you never really know what's over the next dune. And you never see a pit crew until the end of the day.

"He was the fastest driver in two of the first three stages the previous year, but success eluded him this time when his Hummer slammed into the outcropping.

"We had satellite communications so the crew knew where we were," he says, "but there was no way they could get to us 'til morning. It's just too dangerous to be out in the dunes at night.

"It gets your attention. Yeah, I was scared. More scared than I've ever been in a race car."