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BROOKLYN, Mich. - With more than 1,200 acres of land and two miles of race track, Michigan International Speedway is a big, big place. But Robby Gordon came here recently intent on finding something so small you can’t even hold it in your hand.

The veteran driver was searching for that infinitesimal blip on the stopwatch that can mean the difference between winning and finishing 20th on the NASCAR Nextel Cup circuit. Gordon figures he needs maybe two-tenths of a second per lap to get back to the winner’s circle, and he is determined to find it.

While the rest of his NASCAR cohorts were deep in the south, preparing to race at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama, Gordon brought his Cingular Wireless No. 31 Chevy to MIS in the middle of April for what is officially called testing. It is a solitary session of experimentation, where every aspect of the race car is stretched and pushed to its limits - and beyond.

Essentially, with the race track to yourself, you take the car out and run it a while, tweak it here and there, and then run it some more. Every aspect of the test is recorded and fed into a computer. The idea is to glean morsels of information that will allow you to squeeze a little more performance out of this complex machine, and also have the ideal set-up on the car when you return to MIS for the June and August Nextel Cup races that take place there.

Gordon knows he is looking for NASCAR’s version of a needle in a haystack.

"You are not just going to find the magic piece and plop it on the car and find that two-tenths of a second," Gordon said as a trio of engineers made adjustments to his car in between testing runs.

"But we’ve found some stuff that is going to help us. We’re here using this as a test - try one piece, try another piece - go back and forth, back and forth, and just try to evaluate everything and try to understand what changes and why."

On this day Gordon made over 30 runs around the MIS oval in his Cup car, and also used the visit to run a few tests on both of his Chevrolet Dallaras he is preparing for the Indianapolis 500 a month from now. But the brunt of his attention went to the Cup car, and his efforts to make it run a wee bit faster.

"We got a lot out of our two days here. It’s the best NASCAR test that I’ve ever been a part of. In a test like this, it can help us with our runs at mile-and-a-half and two-mile tracks. There are a thousand different adjustments you can make to these cars and you can only pick 150 of them and you need to know what all those adjustments do, and that’s what we’re trying here."

Gordon, who plans to run in the Indy 500 and the Coca Cola 600 on May 30 again this year, is also racing in the Busch Series this season, and has an active off-road truck racing team. That does not allow a lot of leeway for the extensive travel and time commitment required for a testing session like the session at MIS.

"I’ll be honest, race testing - normally I don’t enjoy it," Gordon said. "Just coming out and trying to do things, because there’s nobody really to judge off of. When you think you’ve got it, you don’t really know. You don’t have any other cars to baseline off of."

But Gordon said his work at MIS was different, since it involved a lot more looking outside the conventional mold, which is probably best done in a solitary setting.

"I enjoy the stuff like this, where it is all pieces and parts. Let’s try different spindles, let’s try different suspension in the rear, let’s try different spring rates - completely different philosophies. We’re looking for a different way of getting there, maybe try different shocks that you normally wouldn’t try at a race track. We’re doing things you could never do on a Saturday."

Gordon kept his best poker face on and kept his cards close to his chest, but did hint that this was a particularly helpful round of testing on his Richard Childress Racing Chevy.

"I have struggled some getting into the corners, but I think we’ve made some progress on that. We’ve been trying some different suspension parts, some pieces; we’re just trying to understand what my driving style likes on tracks like this, on these tires."

Gordon trusts his extensive driving skills to allow him to rescue the car no matter how extreme the set-up might get.

"We’re just trying to find the sweet spot in the car right now, and that part I enjoy. I think a lot of people come in and say we can’t run that - because we’ve never done that before - whereas I don’t care. You can put the front tires on the back, if you think it’s going to go faster."

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