Jeff Gordon was not a particularly happy race car driver when last seen at New Hampshire Motor Speedway a month ago.

His mood has brightened considerably since then.

Gordon had a solid run in the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 on July 15 at NHMS, but he was looking for, and needed, more.

“The frustrating thing is we’re getting to the tracks that not only can we win at, but we kind of have to win at,” Gordon said outside his hauler late that Sunday afternoon. “When we come here and don’t have a better performance than that, it’s disappointing.”

Adding to the frustration was the fact that the team had put fast cars on the track all season with little luck and the opinion in the NASCAR garages was that Gordon could be a strong contender for the Sprint Cup championship — if he could get just into the Chase.

His chances of making the 10-race, 12-driver Chase for the Sprint Cup championship seemed to take a serious hit that day in Loudon.

The feeling was that the only way the four-time champion was getting into the Chase was by grabbing one of the two available wildcards, which is based on wins. He had none at the time and most observers felt he needed two wins to get in and he had blown a chance to get one at a Gordon-friendly track.

Which brings us to last Sunday’s race at Pocono.

A crash involving teammate Jimmie Johnson opened up a lane on a restart and allowed Gordon to sneak from fifth place to first and then a thunderstorm came and ended the race and he had himself a rain-shortened win.

To make matters things even better, when the points were totaled, Gordon had moved into prime position to get a wildcard with the one win.

Make no mistake, though, Gordon is still one of the Chase’s bubble boys and the race for wildcards, in particular, has gotten only more intense going into today’s road course event at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International.

“I don’t know if we need the second win as badly as we needed the first one, but it’s not far off,” Gordon said during a NASCAR teleconference last week. “Plus, we just have not performed at a level recently of being able to pull off a win at Watkins Glen like we have in the past.”

His No. 24 team once owned the place.

Gordon, who turned 41 early this month, has won four times at Watkins Glen. Trouble is, all the victories came in a five-year span ending way back in 2001. In the last 10 years, Gordon’s best finish at the Glen has been a ninth and his last three results have been 17th, 16th and 31st.

That kind of finish this year would be extremely costly.

Only five races remain, including today’s, before the Chase field is set after the event at Richmond on Sept. 8.

The 10 top drivers in points make the Chase and are joined by the two wildcard winners.

Kasey Kahne, another of Gordon’s teammates at Hendrick Motorsports, won at NHMS last month and that triumph helps him hold down the first wildcard spot with two wins

Things get mighty tight after that.

Kahne is 11th in points. Carl Edwards is 12th, but does not have a win. Gordon and Ryan Newman are tied for 13th in points and each has a win, but Gordon has a tiebreaker edge for the wildcard. Kyle Busch is another 12 points back with a win. Paul Menard is 16th in points without a win and Joey Logano is next and has win.

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The Pro All Star Series stops at White Mountain Motorsports Park in North Woodstock this afternoon for a 2 p.m. show.

D.J. Shaw of Center Conway sits fourth in the PASS Super Late Model point standings behind a trio of Maine drivers — Cassius Clark, Travis Benjamin and Johnny Clark — and is coming off his first win of the season last weekend at Seekonk.

PASS Sportsman and PASS Modified races are also set.

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Keep an eye on the No. 32 HendrickCars.com Ford team owned and run by Frank Stoddard Jr., the North Haverhill native, this afternoon. Boris Said, a road racing specialist who goes back a ways with Stoddard, is behind the wheel. ... Andy Seuss of Hampstead finished fifth in last week’s NASCAR Southern Modified Tour race at Bowman-Gray in North Carolina. His teammate and series point leader George Brunnhoelzl III won the race. Seuss is 10th in points and the next tour race is Wednesday, Aug. 22 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway. ... The Whelen Modified Tour is at Bristol that night, too.

Allen Lessels covers motor sports for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Sunday News. He may be reached at alessels@unionleader.com.