Gordon says his team will get better as it matures.
"We have all the elements we need to be a Top-10 team," he says. "But what we need to do is come together as a team to do it."
That job has fallen to Greg Erwin, his crew chief, who was in the garage at Lowe's Motor Speedway on Sunday afternoon as the crew thrashed on the Chevrolet.
Late Saturday, David McClure, the engine specialist from Dale Earnhardt Inc., decided the engine had to be swapped out before Sunday's race.
It put increased pressure on the young team. And on Erwin.
The first-time crew chief, who has worked with Gordon on previous teams, says he was ready to back away from racing when Gordon came calling.
"I know it sounds nuts, but I've always believed in the guy as a driver and a person. I came here knowing what I was getting into. There were no surprises," Erwin says.
But there were some disappointments.
"The reason we have so many young faces on the team is that we are a new team with no credibility yet," he says.
"It's hard to attract guys with experience to an organization like this. They don't want to leave a secure job and take the risk of joining a new operation."
Erwin says that creates a lot of churn in the crowded shop as guys gain just enough experience to market their talents somewhere else.
"It hurts us," he says. "We are constantly training someone, and that brings some problems of its own. We aren't where we should be. Half our failures are just bad luck, and the other half are self-inflicted. Half of those are on our part; the others are driver error.
"There isn't much you can do about luck, but we still need to address the other 50 percent. We just have to get to the point where we can close the deal.
"Driver introductions were already beginning as the Jim Beam car finally rolled through tech inspection. It was the last car to be pushed into the line.
Less than a minute after the green flag waved, Gordon and Dale Jarrett connected on the first lap, with Jarrett taking the worse of the hit. Gordon soldiered on, falling back and moving up until finally finishing in the 17th spot when the checkered flag fell 600 miles later.
It wasn't a bad day; it wasn't a great day.
Most other drivers took the next day off to rest up from NASCAR's longest race. But not Gordon. Before dawn the following morning, he was on a plane headed to Mexico to strap into a desert truck and attack the Baja once again.
"I don't worry about how other people describe me," he says. "I guess if I had to describe myself, it would be just a guy who loves to race.
"Jerry F. Boone can be reached at jfboone@aol.com.