Daytona Beach – Everything seemed to be easy for Jeff Gordon, including her first Daytona 500 earn.
In 1997, the 25 -year -old Nascar superstar became the youngest champion of all time. A year later, the favorite of Dale Earnhardt Sr. fans finally won his only 500 victory in his 20th attempt. In 1999, Gordon responded with a second title to the Great American Race.
But when he captured another, in 2005, Earnhardt had left. Gordon, which the legend died once nicknamed “Wonder Boy”, was more than a decade in his career and realized that winning the greatest race in his sport was not so easy after all.
“I probably did not appreciate when I started my career Nascar how difficult it is to win, how much it means winning,” Gordon told Orlando Sentinel on Friday. “Doing this with new individuals in the team who had not won the really special Daytona 500 Made ’05. We had a strong car, but we just gathered as a team.
“It was one of those days when I didn’t want to drop them down.”
Gordon would make 23 additional trips to Victory Lane before retiring in 2015, but not another at Daytona 500. He had a shot in 2014 while he was fourth at Dale Earnhardt Jr. but finished outside the top- 25 six times.
“The last 10 years of my career, these lucky breaks or the things you need to do to run a flawless race to win the Daytona 500,” said Gordon, “it made me appreciate these three victories even more because The way they did it is not so well and how difficult it is.
But whatever happened after n ° 3, his Bonafides – including 70 serial victories and four championships – were well established, his place in History History NASCAR.
Before Daytona 500 Sunday, which should start an hour earlier at 1:30 p.m. due to unfavorable weather forecasts, Gordon’s impact and influence are still felt.
Its Californian education and its possible rise in sprint cars of land Indiana Racing inspired and generated two generations of pilots, including the champions of the Cup Tony Stewart series, Jimmie Johnson And Kyle Larson.
“He has definitely paved the way for guys like me,” said Larson, 32. “My career path really shaped his to go from northern California to Indiana, then come to Charlotte. He has somehow shown you how to do it.
“Many people are still trying to do this in this way.”
Being the first was risky.
“If you go there and you are not successful, it can work the opposite where they go,” said Gordon.
Gordon turned out to be not missing.
After the moving of his California family at Indiana, he quickly emerged in Midget car races. At 16, he became the youngest driver to win a USAC (United State Auto Club) License.
After his secondary school diploma in 1989, he ran that evening in Bloomington that evening. Before the age of 18, Gordon had won three short-piste races and was recruited from the 1989 car car race.
However, Gordon has seized the possibility of running cars in stock rather than following the traces of his idol, the legend of the Sprint car Steve Kinser.
In October 1990, Gordon made his debut in the Busch series and led the circuit full -time in 1991 at the age of 19 and 1992 when he won a record of 11 posts with three races.
When the owner Rick Hendrick offered Gordon a full -time series tour at the age of 21 in 1993, many around the garage were dismayed. Gordon then released and displayed 11 DNF (failed to finish) in 30 races, including five accidents.
“People thought Rick was out of his mind,” Larry McREYNOLDS, longtime analyst and former team leader, said in The Sentinel. “Before that, the owners of cuts did not even think of a driver who was not over 30 years old. As we know, this first year did not go so well.
“But in the back of Rick’s mind, he knew it was there and he would understand it.”
Gordon served in 1994 with his serial victory from the Maiden Cup to the World 600 at Charlotte and a victory at the first Brickyard 400 in the emblematic Indianapolis Speedway. In 1995, he broke out and never looked back. Gordon won 47 races, including 13 in 1998, and three seasonal championships during a five -year race unlike all that is seen in the modern era of Nascar (after 1972).
The budding drivers took note from one ocean to another.
“He gave me the hope that Nascar looked at the west,” said Johnson, who has become a teammate of Hendrick Motorsports who has become seven times champion of the Cup series. “I was very grateful to have opened the track.”
Telenicity, with a rapid and polite spirit, Gordon aroused the passion of longtime fans, whose sport was rooted in the south. The Loyalists of Earnhardt quickly chose the camps.
“You had this juxtaposition where Dale Earnhardt, SR, the southern, then the child of California arriving,” recalls Johnson, 49 years old. “It was much more interest. They were so different that it was interesting to look at.
“It was only one of those perfect storms.”
Corporate America took note while television assessments were written behind Gordon and Earnhardt in the 1990s and in the 2000s. The appearance of Gordon in 2003 as host of Saturday Night Live carried the sport in Salons with little interest and familiarity with NASCAR.
Gordon’s victory in 2005 attracted a record of 18.7 million viewers, followed by 19.4 million to look at Johnson’s victory in 2006. Bought, the sponsorships exploded and a track opened in Places like Chicago and Kansas City.
“He changed the commercial side of sport more than anything,” said the triple winner of Daytona 500, Denny Hamlin. “When he entered, it was there that he had a huge boom of fortune companies 500 who followed the step. It was also interesting of the racetrack because it was on the racetrack.
“This is the key to all of this.”
Time has changed.
After a five-year race as a Fox analyst, Gordon is vice-president of Hendrick Motorsportswhere he pushes to energize sport And produce winning cars.
The thrill, however, is not the same that he earned 93 times and 81 posts, both third of all time.
“When you go to Victory Lane,” he said, “there is nothing like it.”
Anyway, William Byron Viainage at 2024 Daytona 500 In the emblematic No. 24, Chevrolet, once led by Gordon, lit a fire to the 53 -year -old man – and brought him back in time.
“Some things that you cannot take – this number and these fans,” said Gordon. “There are just a lot of good memories there.”
Edgar Thompson can be reached at [email protected]
Next…
Daytona 500
When: Sunday, 1:30 p.m.
TV: FOX
