KANSAS CITY, KAN. ? Jeff Gordon is in a nasty slump.

Gordon, a four-time NASCAR Winston Cup champion, has plummeted to sixth in this year’s standings.

Jeff Gordon laughs during a news conference at the Kansas Speedway. Gordon was at the track testing tires for Goodyear on Wednesday in Kansas City, Kan.

A six-time winner last season en route to the Cup crown, Gordon hasn’t won a race since last September.

And Gordon, NASCAR’s all-time career leading money winner, is barely scraping by this season, having raked in a mere $1.6 million.

It’s the kind of slump other drivers can only envy.

“You talk about Jeff’s slump,” said John Andretti, who sits 35th in the points standings with just $938,148 won this season, “but there are a lot of guys who’d like to be in Jeff’s slump.”

Gordon’s not one of them, but he’s also not sweating a winless skid that dates back to his win at the Protection One 400 last September at Kansas Speedway.

Jeff Gordon runs a practice lap Wednesday at Kansas Speedway while testing tires.

Gordon returned to the scene of his last win along with Cup regulars Andretti and Jimmy Spencer on Wednesday to take part in a Goodyear tire test.

Sporting a budding goatee and 5 o’clock shadow “I’m on vacation,” he said, referring to a rare off weekend on the Winston Cup circuit Gordon was asked if it was nice to return to the scene of his most recent victory.

“I’ve been to quite a few places this year I’ve won at, and I didn’t win,” Gordon said with a laugh. “Obviously, a win would do a lot for us. But this team has gone through enough. We’re strong enough we’re not going to let this season hurt our confidence level. But I hope we don’t have to wait until we get back here to get our first win.”

This year’s Protection One 400 will be Sept. 29. If Gordon hasn’t won since then, he’d be headed for his worst season since 1998 or ’99.

After winning the Winston Cup championship in 1995, ’97 and ’98 and finishing second in 1996, Gordon fell to sixth in 1999 and ninth in 2000.

He earned just under $9 million in those two down years combined. In contrast, he won a Cup-record $10,879,757 last year when he won his fourth championship.

“You always create expectations when you win six races,” Gordon said of last season. “We expected to keep on rolling. But this sport humbles you in a hurry. We haven’t necessarily had a bad year, but we haven’t had the good fortune to pull into victory lane.

“People just don’t understand how difficult this sport is, how teams improve over the offseason. You have a season where you win five, six races, you make it look easy, but every time I pulled into victory lane I was shaking my head.”

Gordon isn’t scratching his head trying to figure a way out of his slump.

After the turmoil of the 2000 season his worst since his first full season on the Cup circuit and resultant return to the top last year, Gordon isn’t about to panic.

“We’re sixth in points,” he said. “We’re leading laps. We don’t even consider it a slump. Because of what our team has gone through the last couple of years, because we stepped down and worked our way back up to winning the championship, I think there’s a lot of respect in the garage area and the media. I think we’ll be able to handle it really, really well because of what we’ve gone through.”

Notes

Kansas City native Jennifer Cobb, a regular NASCAR Late Model driver at I-70 Speedway in Odessa, Mo., attended a media day hyping the ARCA RE/MAX Series BPU 200 on Wednesday at Kansas Speedway. The 28-year-old Cobb, who is two semesters away from a communications degree from Kansas University, said she would make her ARCA RE/MAX Series debut at the BPU 200. Kansas City Board of Public Utilities is Cobb’s primary sponsor and the sponsor of Kansas Speedway’s ARCA RE/MAX Series race. Cobb said she hoped to compete in as many as six races in that series this season and race it full-time next year.

All three Cup drivers on hand Wednesday said they wouldn’t be opposed to two Cup races at Kansas Speedway if a second date wouldn’t lengthen the season.

“I don’t think you need to go to Darlington or Rockingham twice,” Spencer said. “Kansas City, Chicago both those places make sense.”

“There are some race tracks you’d like to go two twice,” Gordon said. “Some, you wonder why you go once. This isn’t one of those.”

Kansas Speedway officials said a study conducted by the Greater Kansas City Sports Commission showed last year’s speedway slate drew 400,000 fans and had an economic impact of $150 million.