Gordon

You always hear "race the track first" and the competition second at Darlington Raceway. Believe me, that's easier said than done.

Before the No. 31 Cingular Wireless team even had to worry about racing the track at Darlington last weekend, we had to deal with battling the weather. Qualifying got rained out Friday but we got a long practice in Saturday morning. When Sunday rolled around, it was still raining and the air was totally saturated with moisture, making it very difficult to dry the track. But about two hours later than the scheduled start for the Southern 500, the green flag waved to start the 367-lap race.

In the opening laps, the Cingular Wireless car was tight and we were only able to maintain our position until the first pit stop on lap 73. After the guys made some adjustments to the car, it was really good and we got all the way up to 10th by lap 111. But 15 laps later, I earned my first of several "Darlington stripes," after hitting the outside retaining wall. Luckily, the damage was minor each time but it still set us back and lost us some spots on the track. They're right when they say you've got to race the track and not the other guys, though. The track is definitely your biggest foe at Darlington.

By halfway through the race, we were 14th and we moved back into the top-10 by lap 251 but faded as the tires wore out. We clawed our way through traffic and finished the race 17th. It wasn't a horrible finish -- in fact it was my best finish in seven starts at Darlington. But we really need a top-10 run soon to keep us moving forward in the points. Team Cingular picked up one spot in the points and we're 20th now.

While we race the track at Darlington, we definitely race the other competitors at Richmond. But the other drivers weren't what got us at Richmond in May. The Cingular team had a freak accident at Richmond that put us out of the race. The track was very slick at the entrance to pit road last time. As we were trying to pit, I was slowing down, turning left onto pit road and the Cingular Wireless Chevrolet picked up two or three inches of sealer or paint on the tires.

The stuff coated the tires and I had no rubber to the asphalt. It was just sealer to asphalt and the car darted to the right and rammed head-on into pit wall and the water barrels. It was like driving your car into a swimming pool because all I could see was a wall of water. The yellow paint was peeling off on the track at that spot. After I ran it over, the track workers were sweeping and scraping it up.

To overcome my performance at Richmond last May, my number one priority is to avoid the water barrels. If I avoid the water barrels, we should have a better finish. Earlier in the season, if we had finished Richmond and the superspeedway races, we would be in the top 15 in the points now. I'll just have to pay more attention in the future to where I come off the track. I couldn't help the fact that that paint was all over the entrance to pit road, but I could have probably avoided it more if I'd kept my eyes open for it.

	Robby Gordon's crash into the water barrels left quite a mess.

The May Richmond race was a night of weird occurrences. In addition to running to the water barrels, some car part bored a hole into our car. Something broke off another car's rear bumper and it drilled a hole in our right-front fender, pierced it and went through the windshield. Then the part put a huge dent in the windshield and exited the car through the hole in the windshield. We had to pit a bunch of times to fix that damage and dropped almost to the rear of the field in the process. This was all before the water barrel catastrophe.

We're running a special paint scheme this weekend at Richmond. Chevrolet is again doing its Looney Tunes promotion and I've got Pepe Le Pew riding along with me this weekend. Hopefully my luck on the track will be better than Pepe's luck with the ladies.

The Cingular team is working hard to get into the top 20 in points. I'm working hard on driving the car and Kevin Hamlin and the crew are working hard on building great cars. A solid top-20 finish in the points is definitely within our reach and hopefully we can get to 15th before the year is over. We just need to keep having solid top-15 and top-10 finishes.

At this point in the season, I've run more races than I've ever run in one Winston Cup season. It's a lot of work -- more than anyone could ever imagine. Our longest CART season was about 20 or 22 races. We never ran more than that. To run 36 points races is a lot. Nobody outside of Winston Cup would believe how much work this sport is. The truck drivers go from the track to the shop to the track without a break and it just about kills them. Drivers test, do PR stuff and appearances for their sponsors. Crew chiefs and crews are constantly working on cars for races or tests.

But I couldn't be happier that I'm racing in Winston Cup. It's by far the most competitive series in America and it's where I want to compete.

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