Generational change in the fanatically-supported NASCAR Sprint Cup Series ranks has been quiet in recent years. Not since the retirements of former standouts Rusty Wallace and Dale Jarrett retired, leaving the race track for the ESPN commentary box. Since then, the upper echelon of drivers – those most successful either in recent times, or over the course of long careers – has been in a status quo.
Until a few days ago, when Jeff Gordon announced that the 2015 season would be his last full-time campaign in the No. 24 Chevrolet SS for Hendrick Motorsports.
One of the most polarising figures in a sport chock full of drivers with personality, Gordon’s absence on the grid will be keenly felt next year. Why? Because, love him or hate him – and, it seems there is little middle ground where Jeff is concerned – Gordon is and will remain one of the most successful drivers in the long history of NASCAR.
The kid from Vallejo, California, who had grown up racing open-wheel machines in the state of Indiana and seemed destined to become an IndyCar driver, was instead snapped up by NASAR – surely, not finding a ride for Gordon it is one of the greatest mistakes open wheel racing in America has ever made, and there have been plenty – racing for Connerty Racing and Bill Davis Racing in the second-tier Busch Series, before being promoted into the NASCAR Winston Cup, as the top-tier series was then know, by Rick Hendrick, beginning at the 1992 Hooters 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Many raised their eyebrows, but Hendrick, a canny and wily operator if ever there has been one, knew he was on a good thing. Sure enough, he was, despite a placing of thirty-first in his debut race, and, despite an uneven 1993 season where, despite winning a Daytona qualifying race, he saw the wall often, suffering from a tendency to push too hard, thus earning too many DNF (Did Not Finish) classifications.
1994 brought Gordon’s first race win, in the Coke 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and the same year won the inaugural Brickyard 400 at the bastion of open wheel racing, the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It was a landmark victory for Gordon on what was a landmark day for stock car racing, who had never before raced on the hallowed ground of Indy.
Then, a year later, 1995, the NASCAR world realised that Jeff Gordon was a star. He won seven races and the Winston Cup Series championship. A year later? Ten race wins and second in the championship. Back-to-back titles in 1997 and 1998 cemented him as one of the all-time greats. So did a fourth championship in 2001.
Three wins in the famed Daytona 500 – 1997, 1999 and 2005 – further enhanced his legacy, and Gordon’s success as a relatively young driver paved the way for a future generation of stars (especially those not from the traditional NASCAR talent hotbed, the southern American states – this California Kid was viewed with some suspicion early on, because he’d been born out west and raced in the Midwest rather than the deep south) to get their shot at the big-time much earlier than was previously the case.
Aside from his own racing endeavours – they are far too numerous for me to mention them all here – Gordon played a major role in bringing into NASCAR a little-known Californian off-road racer named Jimmie Johnson. Debuting in Cup racing in the No. 48 Chevrolet, a number signifying the partnership of Gordon, who drives the No. 24 and Rick Hendrick, as co-owners of the car. Of course, Johnson would go on to win an almost-unprecedented seven Cup Series titles (including 5 in a row, to smash Cale Yarborough’s previous record of 3), and there is no telling how many more Johnson will win.
Perhaps, the fact that Gordon, a sort of polar opposite to the king of NASCAR racing at the time, the late, great Dale Earnhardt Sr. and disliked because of it, has advanced Johnson’s similar lack of popularity from most sections of any given racetrack on any given weekend, but it is hard to deny Gordon’s influence on the sport over the last two decades has been immense.
Even if you loved Earnhardt Sr. and now love Earnhardt Jr. and hate Gordon like you hate the plague – and there are many who feel this way, particularly if you measure this by the amount of anti-Gordon t-shirts you see at the track; they’re everywhere! – you still must admit that Jeff will leave behind a glittering legacy, and admit that, as the beginning of the recent youth movement, the sport might not be the same had he not been given his first shot by Rick Hendrick.
It’s paid off for Gordon and for Hendrick, too. We may never see the trailblazing likes of Jeff Gordon in NASCAR again.
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