Gordon was effusive in his praise for his team-mate, who he acknowledged would be a more than worthy double champion should he prevail in Florida in four days' time, and admitted his own side of the garage simply hadn't done enough, despite their meteoric start to the season.
"He's wracked up incredible numbers since he's been in the series,” he said of his fellow Californian. “To me, it's always a combination of a great driver and a great team. When you get those two ingredients you just think this stuff is easy, and they're making it look real easy. It's so difficult to find that combination, but they have it and that's why they're winning four races in a row.
“When your car is working right you can do a lot of amazing things. You can't touch those guys right now. They run as hard as they want to; iit's going to be tough on anybody to catch the guys that can run 75 to 85 per cent during the race and, when they need to, turn it up.”
Looking ahead to the finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway this coming weekend, Gordon insisted he would still be giving it his all, and if he couldn't lift the ultimate laurels he at least wanted to sign off with a winning flourish so he could begin 2008 on top of his game.
"We've got to go to Homestead and try to end this season with our heads held high and do something positive to take us into the off-season,” he asserted. “We gave them a run for a while, and now we've got to figure out how to get the best finish we can at Homestead.
“We've gotten beat, bottom line, and I guess I've got to change. We've got to figure out how to go faster, because what I'm doing now ain't getting it done, and we've got to find a way to get the performance up if we're going to compete with these guys in the future. They've just been that spectacular. To me, right now it's not about the championship; it's about the off-season and next year and getting ourselves where we need to be.
“I thought it was our year, I really did, but the way things have been going lately I just don't think it is. They've done the job to deserve to be champions and we haven't.”
