All my life I have dreamed of being where I am at today.

What I know, is it's certainly easy to be an armchair quarterback. So easy tosit back and criticize how programs are run, who's doing what, who's not doingwhat and so on.

The most difficult part of this whole new venture of Team Gordon is the"people game". I don't think in the beginning that I realized how difficultit is to assemble, coordinate, manage people and then coordinate them somemore.

From the beginning, Mike (Held) and I made a pact that we would try to hirethe best people for our program, not just from an experience point of view butalso and maybe equally important, a chemistry point of view. As much time aswe spend together, you better make sure that the guys can get along with oneanother.

We are going to make some mistakes. Some people are not going to fit eventhough we may think in the beginning they might. Obviously the teams thatexecute the best today are teams that have great people and that over timehave evolved great people.

Rome wasn't built in a day. Wait a minute, is that me Robby Gordon sayingthat? I've got no patience for that!

That's another thing that's changing quickly. You have got to learn to bepatient. For me it is certainly not an inherited trait, but rather one thathas taken shape. Sooner or later you get tired of getting hit in the head bythe same tree branch. Take out the saw, and cut that bad boy down. Now.

We have assembled a great little team so far. I am pleased with the workethic and the commitment to moving our program forward. It is a very big jobin a very competitive arena with some very wealthy teams, both in experienceand in financial resources.

I believe John Menard gets a kick out of us. You know the old bull and theyoung bull story I'm sure. He gives his opinions and then sits back andwatches us move forward, never saying "I told you so", but instead justoffering those little words of wisdom. Maybe just maybe, he has been in thissituation before.

We have assembled a great little team. We will fight and scrap. We will makesome bad decisions, I am sure of it. But they will be aggressive mistakes.Our people will go the high road and will be as committed and passionate aboutwhat they do as I am.

And if all that happens, we will be champions. Why? Because our people willexpect and settle for nothing less.

You are who you hang with — Robby Gordon