Indianapolis: Jeff Gordon

JEFF GORDON, NO 24 DUPONT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:

"Being at Indy comes at a great time. We're running out of time. This is a good track for us. And we've got Watkins Glen coming up after this. We certainly could use a big turnaround and some momentum and I can't think of a better place for it to happen than here at Indianapolis. But everywhere we go, we've won or we've been fast, or it has some potential and we're approaching it the same way and hoping it'll happen this weekend and working as hard as we can.

"Right now, the most important thing for us is getting things turned around and getting a solid weekend. I'd love to win number five and can't think of a better way to get things turned around than with a win here. But last year, when we were running every weekend, it wasn't about that. It's just approaching it every weekend. It's not about putting this race high on a pedestal. It's about doing your job and doing it well and hoping at the end of the day you did it better than anybody else.

(HAVE YOU HAD TO DO SOME SOUL SEARCHING?) "There have been a few moments. You go along thinking we had this or that happen or we had a bad weekend. You don't panic. But when it adds up week after week after week, you say we've got to get ourselves together here. Or, not let these bad races affect your confidence and make things even worse. We readjusted our test schedule. We looked at a lot more notes in greater detail."

(WHERE HAVE YOU ADDED TESTS?) "You name it. We did the tire test here. We didn't expect to come back here. We had it as a question mark, but did end up doing that. Michigan, Bristol, and Richmond are all ones we definitely added."

(WILL THE TWO TESTS HELP WITH HANDLING PROBLEMS AT THE INTERMEDIATE TRACKS?) "This is a unique place. We're definitely going a different direction on those intermediate tracks and hoping that it pays off for us. It's something we ran at Pocono. We were a little bit better than the prior Pocono, but we still weren't great. Maybe Michigan is a great track to learn on that we can apply to other tracks as well."

(IS THE MONTH OF AUGUST A CRITICAL TIME WITH ALL THE DIFFERENT RACETRACKS?) "It doesn't matter which race tracks. It's critical because of where we are in the points. August is definitely going to be a very important month for us if we're going to make it into the Chase. They are positive and good tracks for us. I think getting into the Chase is still positive for us when I think of those tracks.

(DO YOU THINK YOU NEED A LITTLE LUCK ON YOUR SIDE?) "No, your luck comes and goes. It doesn't matter what you do other than solid preparation and we're doing everything we can do on that side of it."

(ASSUMING YOU MAKE IT INTO THE CHASE, WILL YOUR APPROACH BE DIFFERENT THIS YEAR?) "I think you have to really charge hard. Ten races is more races than you think, but you've really got to fight for every single position from the first to the last. You can't pace yourself. You can just charge hard."

(COMPARING LAST YEAR TO THIS YEAR AT THIS TIME) "I was really happy to be where I was last year. One year you can be riding it out and another year you can be right in the thick of it. I'm hoping right now that we have that kind of drama around us at Richmond. But right now, I think we're too far out of it to be even thinking about that. We've got some ground to make up before we can be excited about being in that craziness."

(ON THE IMPORTANCE OF A 5TH WIN AT INDY) "It's amazing that we've won four. I remember how special it was to win the first one. I can't believe we've won three more and have a shot at five. This is a great place to win at. But right now we've other things that are really on our mind that are top priority right now."

(ARE THERE TRACKS YOU DON'T HAVE A SHOT AT WINNING AT) "At Michigan we stunk the last time we were there. We're testing there because we're so far off. Lately, we haven't been close to a win other than at short tracks and road courses. We've got some catching up to do."

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