Jeff Gordon has yet to capture a checkered flag this season, but that doesn't mean 2010 hasn't been successful.

The four-time Cup Series champion leads all drivers with 10 top-five finishes and is tied with three others — Jimmie Johnson, Greg Biffle and Clint Bowyer — for third with 11 top-10 finishes (points leader Kevin Harvick is first with 14 and Kurt Busch second with 12).

That consistency has helped Gordon grab second place in the points standings, but most of the talk about his season has been centered around the fact that he has yet to win a race.

Denny Hamlin and Johnson lead the Sprint Cup Series, which will be at Pocono Raceway for Sunday's Sunoco Red Cross Pennsylvania 500, with five victories each with Jamie McMurray, Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch and Harvick all having won twice. All but one of those drivers (McMurray is 16th in the standings) would make the Chase if it started today and get 10 bonus points that accompanies each victory.

Gordon has had chances.

He led late at Phoenix and Las Vegas and ran well at Texas before getting caught up in a late accident.

"Those are a little frustrating to me, but I'm really proud of the top-fives we've put together," Gordon said during a teleconference last week. "I'd like to get back to being more dominant. We need to lead more laps. That's what was putting us in position to win races earlier in the season. We got off that a little bit. We weren't leading like we were. That's what's going to get us back into Victory Lane. I feel like we're right there, though. We're just so close.

"The consistency only helps build confidence and puts ourselves in position to get more laps led and get that win."

It isn't just lately that victory has eluded Gordon.

After winning at Lowe's Motor Speedway late in 2007, when Gordon won six times, he has won just once in his past 96 races. His current 49-race winless streak is the longest of his career, two more than a 47-race drought that spanned the final five races of '07, all of 2008 (just one of two full seasons without a victory; 1993 was the other) and the first six races of last season.

But Gordon's consistency has remained.

In those 96 races, including his victory at Texas Motor Speedway in last season's seventh race, Gordon has 41 top-five and 74 top-10 finishes. His average finish over that span has never dipped below 14.5. This season his average finish is 11.8, but those chances at victories earlier in the season were tough to take.

"I think the only frustration I see is letting the wins that I feel like we really could have pulled off slip away," Gordon said. "Texas was disappointing because we got caught up in the wreck. The two that really stand out to me are Vegas and Phoenix. Even though I didn't feel like we had a dominating performance at Phoenix, we were in position. We were leading the race with two tires. I just didn't get a good restart. That one stands out to me as being frustrating because I don't feel like we should have lost that race.

"In Vegas, hey, that's a tough call (for) your crew chief, whether you come down and take two or four (tires). You know other guys are going to try to do the opposite of what you do. That one doesn't actually sting as much as a win at Phoenix.

"The crash at Texas, that was just a bunch of guys, trying different things and racing hard. That's going to happen."

Getting back on track at Pocono isn't far-fetched.

In 35 starts on the 2.5-mile tri-oval, Gordon has four victories, 16 top-five and 24 top-10 finishes and an average finish of 10.7. It is also a place where he took one of the hardest hits of his career, losing his breaks going into Turn 1 in 2007's first race, and saw Kasey Kahne nearly exit the track between Turns 1 and 2 after an accident in June.

"Pocono is a great facility, great track," Gordon said. "I love the people there. I know what their intentions are. That's to have a great racetrack and a very safe racetrack for the drivers and the fans, but I think there are always areas you can improve. I think that's an area they can improve in." - By Joe Miegoc - www.poconorecord.com