NASCAR Newsmaker: Robby Gordon

Robby Gordon left Richard Childress Racing to drive for himself this season. His first season on his own hasn't gone as well as he had hoped. He's finished better than 20th in just one race this year and stands 38th in series points heading to the Watkins Glen road-course this weekend.

The struggles haven't discouraged Gordon or made him pessimistic about the future of Robby Gordon Motorsports. The team started in the Busch Series and won races there in 2004, and he sees a similarly bright future in the Nextel Cup Series.

Gordon talked about his team and the pros and cons of being a driver-owner in a national teleconference earlier this week. Here are excerpts of that call:

Question: What has been the most difficult part of being an owner?

Gordon: Obviously, the fleet of cars, some of the personnel issues have been interesting at least. And I think, you know, it's easy to point out and say our engines have been our biggest problem because we have lost a lot of engines. But I'm going to say in the beginning, our team wasn't good enough for the engines and the engines were an easy excuse. They blew up and kind of saved us from looking like a bad race team.

Now we're a better race team and our engines are getting a lot more reliable and competitive. We finished the Coca-Cola 600, we finished this weekend here at Indianapolis without any problems with engines. It's getting better week in and week out.

We operate our company no different than any other company in Nextel Cup. I mean, I'm not the crew chief.

I'm not the general manager. I'm not the shop foreman. I'm not a chief fabricator. We have people in these positions to do these jobs, no different than Richard Childress Racing or Roger Penske Racing for that matter. Roger is not involved with his Cup team on a daily basis. He may talk to somebody there, but he's not running the organization. We are building our processes so I will not have to run the organization Question: What are some of the positives for you as an owner-driver?

Gordon: (This season) hasn't been easy for anybody. The Joe Gibbs car has gone home this year. There have been good cars that have gone home that have been in the sport for a long time. The positives are, we are alive and well. Sponsorship is good. Things are building. We're not shrinking in any way, shape or form. Opportunities continue to open up on a daily basis. We're going to do everything we can to capitalize on those opportunities.

Question: You are a Busch Series team owner as well. What are the biggest differences between owning a Busch team and a Cup team?

Gordon: I think last year obviously owning a Busch team, we won races with our Fruit of the Loom Chevrolet last year. We ran very competitive week in and week out. Cup is a different level. It's not the same. The cars look the same. They even feel the same.

The competition level is black and white. It is so, so competitive. We had to push every area. Another thing is half these races that we've fallen out of -- the Busch race would have been over with, so we've had to step up our mileage programs. We've had to step up our preparation, our engines and stuff like that have had to been stepped up. And it's definitely getting better. We're finishing races and we're consistently racing ourselves into the top 15 and most of the time we race ourselves into the top 10. I know the results have not shown that, but we're definitely getting better week in and week out.

Question: You've struggled as a single-car team this season. Is there a chance you'll be running a second car out of Robby Gordon Racing in the future?

Gordon: Well, I think that is a possibility. Obviously we have some great companies that are surrounding our organization. We first thing we've been working really hard on is putting all of our specs and procedures and processes in place to be able to run one car. Once we get that done and get all that stuff ironed out, it will be easier to run two cars. Our car has been getting a lot more competitive week in and week out. We're qualifying pretty good now. We race pretty good normally. And, you know, I think the engines are getting better. A two-car program is something we'd like to do in the future. It would definitely make us a lot stronger. But you first got to be able to crawl before you walk, walk before you run.

Question: Could it be as early as next season?

Gordon: I don't see a two-Cup program starting as early as 2006 unless something happened here very, very soon. We started last time in October getting ready for 2005, and we were behind. Now we do have our procedures on how to build cars and we've got a full fleet of cars built up to be able to race week in and week out and race this schedule. You know, racing the schedule is a big part of it. The first half of the season, we raced the wrong race. We raced the Thursday race to get the thing in the truck to go to the racetrack. And now we're to the point where we're two weeks ahead and we have cars that are done now for Michigan and we're looking at Bristol and races like that, as well.

Question: Is team ownership something you want to continue beyond your driving career?

Gordon: The next Rick Hendrick, Richard Childress, Joe Gibbs has to come from somewhere. And I love the sport. I like the competition that Nextel Cup gives us. The schedule is a bit difficult. But I think it's something I want to do, for sure. I'm 35-years-old now.

I believe that if we can stay on the same path, we'll be able to grow our company. We dreamed to grow our company into something that Richard Childress has. We're working hard and we're getting more competitive. Hopefully that becomes a reality