Gordon

While my Cingular Wireless team members are busy getting ready for one of the biggest races of the year -- the Brickyard 400 -- I'm sitting at home trying to get my ankles healed up.

We've been working hard on building team unity and morale, so the Cingular guys and I went to a local motorsports park near Pocono Raceway last Saturday after the garage closed. We all took our motocross bikes up there and had a blast riding the trails and big hills. I took it a little too far, though, when I started doing jumps that I have done hundreds of times. I had the bike several feet in the air, cleared the first hill and tried to clear the second hill. But the bike landed on top of the peak of the second hill and "cased" the hill. That means that the suspension or tires didn't land on the hill -- the casing did. Therefore, my ankles took the brunt of the impact because my feet were still on the pedals when the bike slammed down.

The guys carried me off and the park physicians immediately evaluated me. They didn't think anything was broken, nor did the Richard Childress Racing (RCR) doctor Sunday morning at my motorhome. So, with my two sprained ankles, I was determined to race the Cingular Wireless Chevrolet in the 500-mile event Sunday afternoon.

But it was a marathon of a race that took six hours and 45 minutes to finish from the green flag to the checkered. When Steve Park's accident tore down the guardrail, I took the time we had under the red flag to get out of the car and elevate my ankles. Then we got back to racing under the looming threat of rain.

The Cingular car was pretty tight all around the track. But the rain started falling on lap 22 and the red flag came out after 26 laps. The guys took me to my motorhome, where I soaked my ankles in buckets of ice water. I was hurting pretty bad because I couldn't stabilize my left foot in the car and it was moving around too much. So, the Team Cingular guys made me an aluminum insert for my shoe to anchor the ball of my foot and keep it from moving around when I used the brake pedal.

We were racing again a little more than two hours later, but the car just got tighter and tighter. We led lap 67 and picked up five bonus points, which are very important. After a pit stop for four tires and chassis adjustments, we moved into 18th by lap 158. But when the sun started going down and the air temperature cooled off, the car just kept pushing. We kept working on it but never got where we needed to be. We finished 25th.

I was a little sore when the race ended but I felt pretty good compared to what I thought I'd feel like. I went and had my ankles X-rayed Monday and nothing is broken. The doctors have my left ankle in an air cast and my right ankle taped up. They want me to start doing exercises such as swimming. I'm definitely not going to sit out any races, but am disappointed we had to cancel the Watkins Glen test. As much as we wanted to try out some different set-ups at Watkins Glen, we'll still be OK.

	Robby Gordon is looking forward to competing again at Indianapolis.

What is arguably one of the top three Winston Cup races of the season is upon us -- the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. There's nothing in the world of motorsports that compares to the feeling you get racing at Indianapolis, except winning at Indianapolis. I almost got to experience that in the Indy 500 in 1999 until I ran out of fuel leading on the next-to-the-last lap.

There's just something almost indescribable about Indy. I grew up watching races at Indy hoping to one day get there. I started out racing motorcycles and stadium races all the time hoping to make it to the Indianapolis 500. When you finally get there and have the opportunity, the honor, to walk through Gasoline Alley, the place absolutely overwhelms you. You walk onto pit road and out on the track and see nothing but people on both sides of the track. It's just a sea of screaming, cheering, die-hard fans there to watch you do what you love doing. Indy is just the greatest place. I remember watching my hero, A.J. Foyt, racing at Indy. I look up to A.J. so much and he has taught me a lot over the years. Not only is he an incredible owner and mentor, he's an even better person. Now he owns a car entered in the Brickyard 400 and I have the opportunity to compete against his driver.

I'm one of the few Winston Cup drivers lucky enough to say they've competed in both the Indianapolis 500 and the Brickyard 400. They're both awesome races and special in their own rights. Both the Indy 500 and Brickyard 400 are huge races to their particular series. In my career now, I have to look at the Brickyard as more important because Cingular Wireless is my sponsor in that series and we're racing for points there. That's what I've chosen to do for a living and a hobby. The Indianapolis 500 is also a great, fun-filled race and I don't want to take anything away from it.

The Indianapolis 500 has been around for 86 years while the Brickyard 400 came into existence in 1994. Obviously, the history of the Indy 500 is overwhelming -- you can sense that just by driving under the tunnel into the infield at Indy. But the Brickyard is making a name for itself, as well. NASCAR is the fastest-growing spectator sport in the United States and the NASCAR fans definitely pack the grandstands. Fans are allowed to camp in the infield for the Indy 500 but not for the Brickyard, so the atmosphere is a little different, as a result. The same number of grandstand seats are sold for both races -- both are always sold out.

In my opinion, the Brickyard is more relaxed than the Indy 500. That probably has something to do with the whole aura of the Indy 500 and the history behind it. Some of the greatest racers in the world have competed in the Indy 500, but we have some of the best in the business in NASCAR. But the Indy 500 is still the Indy 500 and Indianapolis Motor Speedway on the day of the big race is sacred ground. But like I said, NASCAR is growing by leaps and bounds every year and the Brickyard is only growing in importance and prominence. But for where I've directed my career, this Winston Cup deal is where it's at.

	“	Some of the greatest racers in the world have competed in the Indy 500, but we have some of the best in the business in NASCAR. But the Indy 500 is still the Indy 500 and Indianapolis Motor Speedway on the day of the big race is sacred ground. But ... NASCAR is growing by leaps and bounds every year and the Brickyard is only growing in importance and prominence. ”
		— Gordon

I don't think I have an edge over anyone else at Indianapolis because I raced in the Indy 500 this year. The Indy cars and Winston Cup cars are such different cars. You're talking about almost 2,000 pounds difference -- 1,800 pounds to be exact. There is a big difference between an IRL car and a Winston Cup car, but they're both fun to race around Indy. You can pretty much go wide-open in an Indy car during qualifying but you can't do that in a Winston Cup car or you'll be wide-open into the wall hard. It's hard to keep an open-wheel car wide-open around Indy because of the turbulent air. But you definitely hold it wide-open more in an Indy car than a Winston Cup car. With my left foot as sore as it is, I would have no problem driving an Indy car now because I wouldn't have to use the brake nearly as much.

The Brickyard will be the first race for the Winston Cup drivers with soft walls. I raced in the Indy 500 in May after the soft walls were put up and I got to see how great they are through my teammate, P.J. Jones's wreck. P.J. got his car turned around going into turn one and backed in into that soft barrier. With the high speed he was going and the angle he hit that barrier, it flicked him back across the race track, but the g-load hit wasn't that big. Another thing that showed how good the soft walls were was that the impact didn't even break the gearbox on his car -- and he backed it in. The wall absorbed all that extra energy from the crash. The gearboxes on Indy cars are designed to break upon hard impact.

When I went to Indy in May for the Indy 500, I saw how they had diamond-cut the track surface and I was sure it was going to absolutely eat the Winston Cup Goodyear tires. The track surface gobbled up our tires on the Indy car during the two weeks of practice there before the Indy 500. But I was wrong. When I went back to Indy for the Winston Cup test two weeks ago, I discovered the grooving gave us much more grip and didn't seem to hurt our Goodyears at all. The grooving gave us more grip during the Cup test and during the Indy 500. With all the grip the track has now, the speeds will be higher and as a result, passing will be even harder. It's hard enough to pass at Indy in a Cup car anyway.

Because of the difficult passing, qualifying is going to be extremely important. We've got to try to get a good starting spot for the Cingular Wireless Chevrolet. But passing has become hard everywhere we go nowadays. It was hard at Pocono and a lot of the other tracks because of the aero-push our cars pick up.

On our first day of testing at Indy, we didn't really track test, but we tested different configurations and different packages. We weren't really looking for speed but handling. On the second day of testing, we worked hard on race set-up. We went back and forth on set-up and played around with some body stuff. We didn't spend much time on qualifying runs, though. The Cingular team gathered a lot of good data and took it back to Jeff Green and Kevin Harvick's teams for them to use when they went there the next week. Hopefully, we'll be able to take the best stuff that the three teams used and put it to work when we get to Indy.

I finished eighth in the Indianapolis 500 in May, the first leg of my Indy/Charlotte Double that day. I will be very happy if the Cingular team can at least match that finish Sunday in The Brickyard 400. When I was younger, I never thought that my first win at Indianapolis might come in a Winston Cup car. But I'm going to give it my best shot Sunday.

Robby Gordon drives the No. 31 Cingular Wireless Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing. He will be providing a diary to ESPN.com throughout the Winston Cup season.