BRISTOL, Tenn. — Jeff Gordon’s head is swimming. Another throng of reporters surrounds him. Cameras in his face, voice recorders piling up under his nose.

It’s really hot on the black concrete on this late August afternoon in the Bristol Motor Speedway infield. The reporters circle in. They all want answers he doesn’t have.

Still, he has to give them something or else the same question, though fashioned with different words, will come again and again: What’s wrong with this team?

The four-time NASCAR Cup champion takes a deep breath and, in trying to satisfy his audience’s lust for the truth, finds he still has no real answer for them. Instead, he paints a picture of a team riding a wave of inconsistency. He refuses to point fingers, especially as the heat rises for crew chief Steve Letarte.

“Everything is good. Steve is strong and doing a great job,” Gordon said before Saturday night’s Sharpie 500, site of five of his race wins over the years.

“I have complete faith in him. Just like last week we had trouble in the pits, but you know what, this week we had some great team-building moments. I’ve made mistakes; we’ve all made mistakes. Just hasn’t been that great, stellar year for us. You can point fingers and try to say this is what has caused us to be behind or that. There is no one reason.”

The frustration the 81-time winner has been trying to suppress surfaces for just an instant, a side of the driver not seen since he inexplicably missed the Chase in 2005. But even that year Gordon reached Victory Lane four times, four more than this year going into Saturday’s race.

This is a season no one saw coming. Yes, he came into Saturday’s race inside the top 12 in points and is still a strong candidate to make the Chase. However, coming off a year when he won six times, had 21 top-five and 30 top-10 finishes, the most dominating stat of 2008 is the number of “did not finishes” on his record — four.

The latest DNF came a week ago at Michigan, and it left Gordon wondering if this just isn’t his year. The car was strong, yet a bad pit stop lost track position and moments later he was in the garage after wrecking.

“You know, we finally had an awesome race car and just didn’t have the total package,” he said. “It’s disappointing because that is the way our season has gone. We get the pit stops and we can’t get the car right. So we just can’t seem to get lined up this year.”

Gordon knows he has helped create this monster of expectations. Since winning his first Cup title in 1995 through last season, he finished in the top five in nearly half his races (220 of 447).

“You know it’s just part of the expectations that are on this team,” he said. “We’ve been at a very high end of competition and in the limelight a lot of the years. That’s a good thing. To win four championships and 81 wins, all those things are fantastic.

“Along with that and Hendrick Motorsports’ recent success, it only creates more expectations. So when the expectations are high and you don’t live up to them, it’s going to create a story.”

Though Gordon’s is the most glaring example, he’s not alone in Hendrick disappointment this year.

Jimmie Johnson has won the last two Cup titles, claiming 15 race wins during that time, often in dominating fashion. He did have two wins this season and was third in points going into Saturday night, but his Lowe’s Impala SS has been far from dominant. Johnson, though, feels the organization is starting to catch up.

“At Hendrick Motorsports we are all looking in areas to find more stones to turn over, to find speed in different areas,” he said Friday. “I feel that through the middle part of the season, we have really been working in the right areas. I feel we can refine a little bit more in those areas and get the car more consistent and a little more speed out of it, but I think we’ll have to find something else (to win the title again).

“We have a lot of testing still ahead of us for all the teams. I feel that with what we have, we will be competitive and we will be able to fight for the championship, but I really liked where we were last year. Between the No. 24 and us, once we got in the Chase, we had a little something over everyone.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s first season at Hendrick has been consistent, yet with just one win and a recent run of less-than-stirring races entering Bristol, the frustration his teammates have been so good at hiding has been more evident in Junior. He, more than Gordon or Johnson, cites NASCAR’s new car as the reason for his struggles.

“It drove better when we didn’t know what we were doing,” he said. “I’ll be honest with you. When we first started messing with this car last year, we ran it at a couple of the short tracks and I was really pleased. I really, really was. But this year I’ve not been as happy with the car. That is no reflection on my team. I’m just saying with the car itself. It hasn’t done what I expected it would do.”

Expectations, as Gordon can attest, are often hard to live up to.

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