Indianapolis ? His fourth victory in the Brickyard 400 was more than a little piece of history to Jeff Gordon.

The four-time NASCAR champion wrested the spotlight away from teammate Jimmie Johnson, the Nextel Cup series points leader, and put it directly on his own No. 24 Chevrolet with Sunday’s dominating victory at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“I think it’s a pretty loud statement,” said Gordon of his 69th career win.

“You know, this team, man, they are just really on top of things right now. It’s just so much fun going to the racetracks when you know that you’ve got a chance at winning, just pretty much every weekend you feel like you’ve got some kind of a shot at it.”

It’s understandable that Gordon is brimming with confidence. He has finished fifth or better, including three wins, in seven of his last eight starts. The only race in which he faltered was at Michigan, where he started from the pole and led 81 of the first 88 laps before his engine blew and he finished 38th.

The Brickyard win, which matched the four Indianapolis 500 victories by Gordon’s early open-wheel heroes — A.J. Foyt, Al Unser and Rick Mears — came on a day when Johnson ran into trouble. An early spin and then an engine failure relegated Johnson to 36th place and cut his lead over Gordon from 232 points to just 97.

That doesn’t really mean much to either driver, though, thanks to NASCAR’s new championship system in which the standings will be reset after the first 26 races, with the top 10 drivers starting with an overall separation of only 45 points and competing for the title during the final 10 events.

With only five races until the “Chase for the Cup” begins, Johnson and Gordon agreed that momentum was most important right now.

“That was disappointing because we don’t want to have any failures,” said Johnson, who was coming off a win at Pocono but failed to finish for only the third time this season. “We want to be out there competing for every win, so we’re more disappointed than anything else.”

Nextel Cup driver Jeff Gordon, left, and car owner Rick Hendrick kiss the yard of bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Gordon won the Brickyard 400 on Sunday in Indianapolis.

Gordon, who co-owns Johnson’s car with his team owner, Rick Hendrick, appears to be in the better position now, even though he trails his teammate in the points.

“We’re in the mode of getting all that we can get,” Gordon said, “and I want to go into those last 10 breathing down those guys’ necks, leading laps, showing that our pit crew is the best, that our cars are the best, that we are the team and the guys to watch coming into those last 10.”