Robby hoping to rival Hendrick/Childress.

Robby Gordon's first stab at being a Nextel Cup team owner since the 2000 season started badly but has picked up during the middle of the season and, as Gordon reiterates his desire to become one of the top owners in the sport, he also looks forward to a much better run to the end of the year.

After a succession of failures to qualify followed by a series of engine failures virtually ended Gordon's chances of making it into the top 35 in owner points during the 2005 season, the versatile and mercurial talent says he is expecting a better run of results over the final 15 races of the year, starting this weekend at Watkins Glen, where Gordon won two years ago.

"We're a little under budget right now," Gordon says of his #7 team. "We're not quite where we want to be. But I expect the second half of the season to be a lot better. We qualified 13th at Indianapolis and finished 24th. It wasn't a great day for us.

"We could very easily win both races this weekend (Busch and Cup). I look forward to going back to Michigan next weekend. We qualified eighth there last time. We ended up losing a coil while running fifth. We've had some good cars. We are definitely getting more competitive. Our pit crew has stepped up their game. I expect a good second half of the season."

Trading primary sponsorship space between four companies this year, Menards, Harrah's Jim Beam and Fruit of the Loom, Gordon says that he would like to expand his operation, but only when the time is right.

"I don't see a two-car Cup programme starting as early as 2006 unless something happened here very, very soon," Gordon continued. "We started in October getting ready for 2005 and we were behind. Now we have our procedures of how to build cars. We have a full fleet of cars built up to be able to race week in and week out and race the schedule.

"Racing the schedule is a big part of it. The first half of the season, we raced the wrong race. We raced the Thursday race to get the thing in the truck to go to the racetrack. And now we're to a point where we are two weeks ahead. We have cars that are done now for Michigan and are looking at Bristol and races like that as well."

While his first effort as a team owner in 2000 lasted less than a full season, Gordon is determined to keep the name Robby Gordon Motorsport in NASCAR's premiere series for the long haul this time and sees no reason that RGM cannot grow into one of NASCAR's superteams.

"The next Rick Hendrick, Richard Childress, or Joe Gibbs has to come from somewhere. I love the sport. I like the competition that Nextel Cup gives us. The schedule is difficult. But this is something I want to do for sure. I'm 35 years old now and I believe that if we can stay on the same path, we'll be able to grow our company. We've dreamed of growing our company into something like Richard Childress has. We're working really hard and we're getting more competitive. Hopefully that becomes a reality."