Gordon likes Gen-6 car

Four-time NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon had a disappointing Daytona 500, a bounce-back, top-10 finish at Phoenix and more frustration at Las Vegas.

But Gordon, who visited Kansas City on Thursday, is not blaming the new Generation-6 car for the slow start to his 21st Sprint Cup season.

“I like the car,” said Gordon, who is 13th in the points standings after three weeks. “It drives well. It looks good. The competition is fantastic. It’s just different. It’s just learning some different things. Each track we go to will be something unique and give us more challenges we have to face. Each race we learn something we learn more about it, and so does NASCAR.”

“Daytona is what it is … a restrictor- plate race, just being at the right place at the right time. I feel like I made some mistakes there. Phoenix, we had a good car, we did a good job, but last week at Vegas we completely missed it as a group, and paid a big penalty for it.”

When the Sprint Cup series returns to Kansas Speedway for the STP 400 on April 21, the new cars will run on a relatively new track. Kansas Speedway repaved and reconfigured its 1.5-mile tri-oval in time for last fall’s race, and Gordon finished 10th in the first race on the new surface.

“It’s going to be fast,” said Gordon. “We’ll have some really good data on the car to be able to fine-tune it for Kansas. Repaves and the hard tires for the grippy repaves are tricky.”