“I’m looking forward to Thursday’s visit,” said Gordon. “It’s always cool to see communities get involved with this issue, and I think it will be interesting to learn and see what the university and the students are doing.”
On Friday, he will turn his attention to winning his sixth race at the 1.54-mile Georgia track. Along with five wins, Gordon has two poles while leading active drivers with 16 top-fives, 25 top-10’s and 1,280 laps led in 39 starts.
“This has always been such a fun race track – one we always slide around on,” said Gordon, who made his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series debut here in the 1992 season finale. “The surface – with its abrasiveness – provides the teams and drivers with a huge challenge.
“And that challenge is what makes it so fun.”
Another challenge facing Gordon is securing one of the 12 spots in the “Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.” After a seventh-place run at Bristol last weekend, Gordon chopped 15 points off the deficit to 10th and is only 11 points out of that guaranteed berth with two races remaining before the field is set.
“We just need to do our job and get the best results possible these next two races and see how things shake out,” said Gordon, who has 12 top-13 finishes in his last 13 starts at Atlanta including a win in 2011 and a runner-up finish here last year. “We’ll go out every practice and try to get everything out of the car.
“You’ll have ‘ups’ and you’ll have ‘downs’ throughout race weekends. It’s how you manage the peaks and valleys that allow you to stay focused.”
And that focus is firmly set on a Chase spot.
