Gordon 24th at Atlanta

Robby Gordon walked out of Atlanta Motor Speedway with a 24th-place finish on Sunday. However, it was anything but a normal 500-mile NASCAR Sprint Cup race for the No. 7 Valvoline Dodge driver.

It was strange in that Gordon endured one of the worst handling cars for some of the race and then one of the best driving cars in the 43-car field for the rest of the race.

“It was a good and bad day for us considering everything that happened today,” Gordon said. “But I thought it could have been even better. We just couldn’t figure out what was wrong today.”

Gordon’s day could have been a lot better except whenever the Robby Gordon Motorsports team bolted on four new tires Gordon struggled for the first several laps.

“We were just horrible, horrible, horrible on restarts,” Gordon said after the race.

But as bad as Gordon was on the restarts, he was equally if not much better on the longer runs. At some points, he appeared as one of the five or six cars turning in the best lap times.

“Believe it or not Rob, you were about the fastest car on the track,” said crew chief Frank Kerr.

Every time the green flag fell or Gordon reentered the track with new tires he struggled.

But as soon as the new tires came in the No. 7 Dodge would reel in those cars that passed it earlier and start climbing up the scoring chart.

It didn’t take a long time after the green flag fell on the 1.5-mile oval for all to see how good and bad Gordon would be on Sunday.

Gordon started the race in 26th, but when the race started leader Dale Earnhardt Jr. set a blistering pace lapping all but 20 cars in the first 40 laps including Gordon.

“I am absolutely horrible on new tires,” Gordon reported over the team radio.

After coming to pit road for chassis adjustment Gordon’s car returned to the track and began to show its speed despite a couple of brushes with the wall.

Each run, Gordon started slowly but by the middle to late portions of a fuel run he was one of the fastest on the track.

“Robby your lap times are great,” said Crew Chief Frank Kerr.

But Gordon couldn’t overcome the slow starts and traffic and after a lap 195 battle with leader Clint Boyer Gordon fell down a second lap.

For the rest of the race Gordon raced with the cars two laps down and finished 24th although he often passed the lead lap cars.

“It was frustrating to be so good and be back in the field, but we know what we have to work on and when we come back to Atlanta I think we are going to be very good,” he said.

Kyle Busch won the race beating teammate Tony Stewart by a few seconds with Dale Earnhardt Jr. finishing third.

Gordon and the Sprint Cup Series return to action this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Gordon drops to 24th in the drivers points.