With the economy in the condition that it is, it is difficult to compete in races if you are a single car team run by an owner/driver. It is even harder if you have no solid sponsorship.

Robby Gordon defied gravity, so to speak, on Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway. He placed his No. 7 Dodge Charger in the sixth position when the checkered flag was waved indicating the conclusion of the Coke Zero 400.

With his highest finish of the 2008 season, Gordon improved on the Daytona race run in the season opener where he recorded an eighth place finish.

"It was a good run for us all day," he said. "I rode around for a while, like the plan was, and got ourselves in position there at the end. I got shuffled on the second-to-last restart, went from seventh back to 14th and still finished sixth. I'm pretty happy with that."

The No. 7 team has not recorded results to be proud of this season. Gordon deems that they have ran well throughout the season, but have not accumulated the finishes that prove that they can contend. They now are working out their kinks and are improving the team’s game a little bit.

“I am happy that we were finally able to nail a finish like we have been running lately,” Gordon stated. “We’ve had fast cars but we seem to make the wrong decisions late in the race.”

"At Sonoma we ran in the top five the whole time and finished 35th, [then] here. We've had some good runs and now we're starting to execute at the finish line and learn from some of the mistakes we made earlier in the year," Gordon stated. “Today the team made smart decisions and I think we are learning from our mistakes in the past, and we are looking forward to another strong run this weekend in Chicago driving the Jim Beam Dodge.”

Gordon feels that the turnaround has just begun, and that things are looking up for Robby Gordon Motorsports and the No. 7 race team.

"We've learned a lot," Gordon assured. "… I've got real high hopes for some races coming up for us."