Jeff Gordon has said repeatedly that the NASCAR Chase is all about average finishing position. So to him, having a bad race means he'll have to have a really good race to make up for it.
That's pretty much the position Gordon is in now. After a 12th-place result on Sunday at Dover International Speedway, Gordon said he'll have to balance it out with a better finish somewhere down the line.
"That means we have to go and perform better," he said. "Every time we have a finish like this, it means we've got to perform that much better in the next couple of races."
Gordon tumbled four spots to ninth in the point standings after Sunday's race and now sits 19 points behind co-leaders Kevin Harvick and Carl Edwards.
That's disappointing for a driver who had high hopes and was considered by some to be a favorite heading into the 10-race playoff.
"I knew (Dover) was going to be a struggle for us," he said. "I think Chicago was a big surprise for us. I think had we finished good in Chicago (instead of 24th), had the (fourth-place) run that we had in New Hampshire – which we thought we could have – and then came here and had a 12th-place finish, I'd be feeling pretty good about it."
The problem at Dover was not unique to Sunday for Gordon. As he did in the spring Dover race, Gordon struggled on the restarts and said, "we just didn't have it."
"The front tires just would not hook up," he said. "We really struggled getting the car to roll through the center until we got 12 to 15 laps (into a run), and then we were just about as good as anybody. So it was a struggle."
It's no wonder, then, that Gordon is looking forward to Kansas next week.
"Kansas is a great track for us; I can't wait to get there," he said. "If we can run the way we ran there earlier in the year, we'll make up a bunch of those points that we lost today."