Kansas Speedway a nice fit for Gordon
No. 24 Chevy has record of success at 1.5-mile track
By RICK MINTER Cox News Service
Many people in NASCAR are looking ahead to the race at Talladega

told reporters at Dover last week. "I feel like in the past, when we've run good at Kansas, we've actually run decent at Chicago, just not good enough to win. And as good as our stuff was at Chicago, feel like we should be able to go to Kansas and be pretty close and hopefully be good enough to have a car that performs like we did in Chicago." Another Chase driver, Mark Martin, is the defending winner of the Banquet 400. The other two Kansas victories have gone to Ryan Newman and Joe Nemechek, who aren't in the Chase. While teams that typically run well on

Superspeedway and wondering whether the "Big Wreck" there will play a deciding factor in who wins the Chase for the Nextel Cup. But a better indicator may come this weekend at Kansas Speedway, where the Banquet 400 is the first of five upcoming races on similarly shaped, mile-anda half oval tracks.

Earlier this season, Jeff Gordon nudged Matt Kenseth aside to win at Chicagoland Speedway, which is nearly identical to Kansas. And he has won two of the five Nextel Cup races held at Kansas. So it goes without saying that he's optimistic heading into this weekend.

Jeff Gordon has reason to be optimistic as he heads to Kansas this week - the track is similar to Chicagoland Speedway, a track where Gordon claimed victory in July (above). Driving the No. 24 Chevy (left), Gordon is second in the standings following a third-place run last week at Dover.

"Kansas is a track that I'm looking forward to because if there's any track that is similar to Chicago, it's Kansas," Gordon one intermediate track often do well on others, Gordon points out that the 1.5-mile tracks on the schedule aren't as "cookie-cutter" similar as they're often labeled.

"Charlotte, obviously we've had a re-pave there; it's a totally different racetrack than all the other mile-and-ahalfs," he said. "Atlanta has an old, worn-out surface, but it's still a great racetrack.

"Texas is completely different. There are just transitions and bumps and different things that you have to deal with there. Homestead has a variable banking, so even if they're mile-and-a-halfs and we have a basic setup that should work at all of them, you still have to fine-tune some things to make it work for that particular racetrack.

"But as far as Kansas is concerned, I'm really looking forward to that one. I think we should be pretty close."

Gordon's teammate and fellow Chase participant, Kyle Busch, had a mediocre effort at Kansas last year, qualifying and finishing 21st, but he's hoping his success on similar tracks will allow him to regain points lost at New Hampshire and Dover and move out of the Chase cellar.

"Kansas is a pretty cool place; it is sort of like Chicago," Busch told reporters at Dover. "We run well at Chicago and we run well at Vegas, both similar-type tracks to Kansas. The biggest thing for us going into Kansas is to make sure we get a good finish.

"We will probably run the same setup we did at California or at Chicago and see if we can't rebound with a strong finish there and keep going."