SONOMA, Calif. - Jeff Gordon would love to jump-start his winless season on one of the road courses he used to dominate.

Gordon’s season has been like the picturesque Infineon Raceway circuit he will race on Sunday in the Dodge/Save Mart 350: up and down.

With no victories entering the 16th race of the season for just the third time in his career, Gordon is 11th in the standings. He is 11 points behind 10th-place Greg Biffle and 13 behind ninth-place rookie Denny Hamlin.

Behind him, five drivers are within 176 points of Gordon, including Kyle Busch, only one point behind his Hendrick Motorsports teammate.

The top 10 drivers in the standings — and any others within 400 points of the leader after the first 26 races — qualify for the 10-race Chase, now in its third year. Gordon missed it last year and does not want to do so again.

“This is an important weekend for us,” Gordon said. “But, as competitive as Nextel Cup is these days, all of them are equally important. But we do need to get some momentum building.”

Things didn’t get off to the best start for Gordon, who was fastest in practice on Friday but 11th in time trials after making a mistake and driving through the dirt on his qualifying lap.

“It wasn’t what we were hoping for,” Gordon said, “but we’ll be fine in the race. We just wanted to get through qualifying without making any big mistakes and, unfortunately, I just got off in the dirt a little bit and that was it.”

Kurt Busch won the pole with a lap of 93.055 mph, followed by Jamie McMurray at 92.948, Kevin Harvick at 92.889, Ryan Newman at 92.812 and road racing specialist Boris Said at 92.663.

Rounding out the top 10 were Kasey Kahne, last week’s winner at Michigan; Greg Biffle, Mark Martin, Matt Kenseth and Joe Nemechek.

Not long ago, it was almost automatic for Gordon to win on one of the two Cup road courses. He leads all Cup drivers with eight victories on the tracks with both right and left hand turns. From August 1997 through June 2000 he won six straight — three each at Infineon and Watkins Glen International.

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Gordon’s record on the 1.99-mile, 10-turn Infineon course includes a series-leading four wins, eight top fives, nine top 10s and 393 laps led in 13 starts. He has led the most laps in the race at Sonoma six times, including 92 of 110 laps in 2004, his last win at the track.

But Tony Stewart is now the driver to beat on the road courses. Stewart, a five-time winner, is the defending champion and winner of two straight at Watkins Glen.

“A lot can happen at Sonoma,” said Stewart, who qualified 12th. “You’ve got to be patient all day. You get a lot of cautions there and a lot of guys end up beating and banging on each other. I mean, the cars look like they’ve been to a race at Martinsville because it’s a short road course.

“Do what you have to do to get through the first 70 laps, but those last 20 are the ones when you really have to go, and you need your car to be in one piece to make it happen.”

Stewart got his first win of 2005 at this track. He already has one victory in 2006 and is sixth in the points despite crashing out of last Sunday’s race at Michigan, finishing 41st.

Gordon has gone this deep into a season without a victory only twice before — his winless rookie season of 1993 and 2002, when he won the first of three races in his 24th start of the season. He finished fourth that year.

In last year’s visit to the Northern California track, Gordon started second and led 32 laps before a broken transmission left him in 33rd-place.

“Because of our success here, it’s easy to look at last year’s result as playing a big role in us missing the Chase,” Gordon said. “And it did. But our performances at other tracks were to blame as well. This weekend gives us the opportunity to get some points back.”

Gordon understands that the competition has gotten tougher on the road courses.

“There was a time when teams didn’t focus on the road courses,” Gordon said. “They just wanted to get through them. Now, every race and every position means so much toward the Chase and the championship.”