Nascar star frustrated by bad form…

… Still, at least he has a hot wife.

At this stage of the 2007 Nascar season, Jeff Gordon was leading the championship with four wins and a 344-point lead. Fast forward one year and he’s winless, in sixth place, a massive 500 points behind leader Kyle Busch.

So what’s gone wrong?

Gordon himself is mystified as to the reason why he’s not on the pace in 2008. He said:

“We’ve lost that magic that we had at one time. We have absolutely missed our road course program. And we even went and tested and I thought we were going to be pretty good. We were good on our short runs in testing, but we just didn’t make enough long runs and that’s what we’re going to have to work on.”

It’s not like Gordon is miles behind the leaders. He’s notched eight top-five finishes so far, hardly the performance of an also-ran. But when he failed to win at Watkins Glen last weekend - a track where he has four victories to his name - it became clear that Gordon has truly misplaced his mojo. Gordon finished way down in 29th at the Glen, no thanks to a black flag shown when his team couldn’t contact him over the radio.

Maybe it’s just not Gordon’s year; or maybe it’s the beginning of the end for the 37-year-old Nascar legend.