With an impressive, rock steady third place at Daytona International Speedway in the Coke Zero 400, the #24 Hendrick Motorsports’ driver Jeff Gordon was thrilled to score top-five finish in the Atlantic beach town in three years.

"Man, I'm just happy to survive one of these restrictor plate races -- it's been a while since we've done that," Gordon said after the race. "We had a pretty good night, car drove good -- especially on the long runs -- and we avoided the big [wrecks] and got ourselves in a good position to win the race."

With the result, Gordon moved into second in the championship, which has eight events to go in the Race to the Chase.

"I'm excited that we're second in points, but I'll be honest with you, all I look at is where we are with wins right now," Gordon said. "When you're positioned well in the Chase, like we are currently, then it comes down to wins and being seeded for when that Chase comes around."

Ironically, Gordon is the only driver in the top six in the standings who has yet to win in 2010.

"I think these top-fives that we've had here recently build momentum to get us an opportunity to get us those wins, so that's really more what's on our mind right now," Gordon said. "It's about what we've got to do to win a championship. I feel like we've got to get a few wins before that Chase starts.

"It was nice to lead some laps, and I'm looking forward to getting to some of these mile-and-a-halfs coming up, like Chicago [this weekend's race venue, Chicagoland Speedway] because we've had good cars and I feel we've got a win in us -- sooner rather than later."

"It certainly helps when you're further up in the points," Gordon said, "because it gives you that opportunity to take more chances and try more things to make sure that you either get those bonus points or that you're the car to beat when the Chase comes around."

But Saturday night, when the race set a record for different leaders with 18, and those leaders registered the second-most lead changes in the race's history (47), Gordon was most excited about getting to those intermediate tracks, where his experience can make a difference.

"I'm definitely relieved to get out of here with a top-three, with all the crazy stuff that happened the last 20 laps," Gordon said of the four cautions in the last 20 laps. "We've been in so many of those wrecks here recently on restrictor plate [tracks] that our good stats that we've always had on the restrictor plates have been going down fast. So this was a nice way to rebound.”