Nascar Driver - Robby Gordon - His Own Man

"He is one of the most naturally gifted drivers I've ever worked with," says Roush, "but he's also been very slow to assimilate the good advice others have offered him."

Gordon eventually turned to open-wheel racing. He drove in the Indy Racing League and CART, where in 1995 he won four poles and two races.

He made his NASCAR debut with an 18th finishing spot in the 1991 Daytona 500, but didn't get serious about the series until 1997, when he started in 20 of the 32 races.

Driving for a variety of owners, Gordon's best Cup season came in 2003. He was driving the No. 31 for RCR when he recorded two victories, four Top-5s, and 10 Top-10s to finish 16th in the final point standings. He also became only the fourth driver to win both Cup road races, at Sonoma and Watkins Glen.

Buoyed with his success and wanting to expand, Gordon launched his own Busch team in 2003 under a partnership with RCR.

John Story, who helped found Robby Gordon Motorsports and runs its day-to-day operations, remembers what it was like when he finally committed to leave a secure position with golfer Greg Norman to cast his lot with Gordon's dream of becoming a NASCAR driver/owner.

"It was June 2003," Story recalls. "We had nothing. We had no sponsors. No cars. No shop. No crew. I looked at what we were getting into and thought to myself, this is a gamble and a half.

"But in February of '04 we were at Daytona with a Busch team and sponsorship from Fruit of the Loom, and we ran well. It was an incredible six months."

For Gordon it was fulfilling a dream.

"I guess there was never a time in my life I didn't want to race," says Gordon. "I realized early on this is what I want to do. It isn't easy. There were some tough times, especially back in the '90s. That's when I learned just how tough racing can be."

Gordon's back at Indy in 1999. He's coming around Turn 4 again, but this time he's leading America's premier open-wheel race.

He took the lead on Lap 171 when he and team owner John Menard decided not to pit for fuel and run the tank dry in an attempt to win the Indianapolis 500.

"There was only one way we were going to lose this race," Gordon says.
And that's how they did it.

It was on Lap 199-the white flag was waving from the starter's stand-when his engine sputtered, his car again coasted to a stop, and Gordon watched Kenny Brack accelerate away for the win.

"Life's a gamble," he says a week later. "Sure, I would have loved to have won that Indy 500, but we knew that the only way we were going to do that is to gamble. We did. We lost. There are no guarantees in racing."

Gordon has never been timid about rolling the dice.

In the middle of 2004, he told Childress he would be leaving RCR to create his own Nextel Cup operation.
But then reality hit.

Story admits the team may have been overconfident with its initial performance in the Busch Series.

"There were two things we underestimated," he says. "Richard Childress let us hire the Cup pit crew for Busch, so we had phenomenal stops. We'd pick up positions every time we pitted, and we were using RCR engines. Between the pit crew, the engines and Robby's talents, we figured we were set to go to the big time.

"We got into Cup with Jim Beam, which came about for a one-season deal," adds Story. "It was kind of risky for them. As a team, we didn't have any history. All we had to sell them was Robby.