Both Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon—with six NASCAR Cup championships between them—are both still winless this season.
Well, not to write off the men who may be the two best all-around drivers in NASCAR, but Gordon hasn’t won a title since 2001, and Stewart is going to be running his own team next year. So are these two guys simply starting to fade?
Will the pressures of running his own Cup operation next year keep Stewart too busy to be very effective in these last three months of the season? Will crew chief Greg Zipadelli be more focused on how to get newcomer Joey Logano, just 18, ready for the full 2009 Cup tour?
“We’re all wondering what the hell he’s thinking,” Jimmie Johnson said of Stewart’s new job. “He’s biting off a lot.
“Still, if there is a guy out there that can wear both hats, it would be Tony.
But the Stewart story at the moment is the same as the Gordon story at the moment: Winless.
But Gordon said that this season has been disappointing: “So far, yes. It’s been a little bit frustrating and disappointing.
“We want to win, we want to be competitive. We came off such a great year last year. And our team has been phenomenal this year, we just haven’t had the runs, haven’t had the cars; and when we did have the cars, we haven’t been able to put it all together.
“That’s definitely been frustrating.”
“Honestly, you don’t have to win a race to win the championship in my opinion,” Gordon said. “We’re one of the most consistent teams out there. But we do need to get our performance up a notch to compete with those guys.
“They are going to get the wins, they are going to get those bonus points. So we got some work cut out. But I’m certainly not counting ourselves out.
“A victory—all that does is calm the media down. To me it’s not about a win; it’s about consistently running up front and leading laps.
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