Pocono's last five races

Last week Jeff Gordon had one of his worst races of the year. He never found the handle on his Chevy and was consistently one of the slowest drivers in traffic. Even if he fails to win this week, however, Gordon should have a strong run since he enters the week with the best average finish during the last five races.

If not for an unsuccessful pit gamble last fall, that honor would almost certainly go to Denny Hamlin who had a victory in fall 2006, a sixth and two thirds prior to his team's miscalculation. Those are the only two drivers with an average better than 10th.

Kevin Harvick nearly made the list. He settles into third on the list with an average of 10.0, which could make this one his best opportunities to break out of his funk in quite some time.

Average finish, last five races

Driver	Avg Finish	2008.2	2008.1	2007.2	2007.1	2006.2
Jeff Gordon	6.40	10	14	4	1	3
Denny Hamlin	7.20	23	3	3	6	1
Kevin Harvick	10.00	4	13	17	11	5
Mark Martin	10.60	8	10	9	7	19
Tony Stewart	11.00	2	35	6	5	7
Matt Kenseth	11.00	11	7	14	9	14
Ryan Newman	11.80	14	18	7	2	18
Jeff Burton	11.80	21	5	11	13	9
Jimmie Johnson	12.40	3	6	5	42	6
Kurt Busch	13.00	38	8	1	16	2
Martin Truex Jr	13.40	15	17	22	3	10
Dale Earnhardt Jr	14.60	12	4	2	12	43
Carl Edwards	16.80	1	9	21	14	39
Casey Mears	17.00	22	26	10	4	23
Kasey Kahne	17.60	7	1	27	22	31
Brian Vickers	19.60	28	2	29	35	4
Bobby Labonte	20.20	33	11	30	19	8
Clint Bowyer	20.80	6	39	8	10	41
Greg Biffle	21.00	13	15	23	30	24
David Ragan	22.00	5	24	33	26
Kyle Busch	22.20	36	43	12	8	12
Tony Raines	22.50	18		15	36	21
Jamie McMurray	23.60	9	20	40	29	20
Joe Nemechek	25.50	41	29		15	17
David Stremme	25.67			25	23	29
Dave Blaney	26.40	31	22	20	43	16
Regan Smith	26.50	25	28
Juan Montoya	28.50	40	38	16	20
A J Allmendinger	28.75	19	12	45	39
Elliott Sadler	29.20	27	34	32	21	32
Reed Sorenson	29.20	35	33	28	24	26
J J Yeley	29.20	39	44	35	17	11
Paul Menard	30.25	42	25	26	28
David Gilliland	30.75	34	16	39	34
Robby Gordon	31.75	37	36		41	13
David Reutimann	32.00	30	19	41	38
Sam Hornish Jr	34.00	26	42
Michael Waltrip	40.40	43	37	38	44	40
Derrike Cope	44.00					44
Mike Bliss	46.50			44	49

IRL: Patrick's joke not so funny

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency is not laughing about what Danica Patrick insists was a joke, according to Foxsports.com. When asked if she would take performance enhancing drugs, Patrick responded, "Yeah, it would be like finding a gray area. In motorsports, we work in the gray areas a lot. You're trying to find where the holes are in the rule book."

Our View: That certainly doesn't sound like a joke—but then again that's one problem with print. It doesn't catch the inflection of a driver's voice and we are willing to give her the benefit of the doubt on this one.

N'Wide: Bayne to driver for MWR

Trevor Bayne has signed an eight-race deal to drive for Michael Waltrip Racing, beginning this week at Nashville Superspeedway, according to NASCAR.com.

Our View: Youth continues to flood into NASCAR; Bayne is 18—and he made his debut at Bristol this spring driving a lightly-funded entry for Jimmy Mean to a 23rd-place finish.

Other races for MWR will be at Kentucky, the Milwaukee Mile, Gateway, O'Reilly Raceway Park, Iowa, Bristol and Phoenix.