Jeff Gordon's career path indelibly stamps him as an extreme thrill seeker. But the 2002 NASCAR Winston Cup season, one in which he had high hopes of repeating as champion, turned out to be a roller coaster ride that would have left even the hardiest soul weak-kneed.
Up-and-down performance on the track, coupled with his wife, Brooke, filing for divorce, tested Gordon's mettle in ways he never imagined. At the low point of the campaign, crew chief Robbie Loomis had serious concerns about keeping his job at Hendrick Motorsports.
Despite the turmoil, Gordon had a legitimate chance to successfully defend his crown, and all three of his victories came in the final third of the season. That late surge and the potential of a redesigned Monte Carlo SS boosted the confidence of Gordon's team. The 31-year-old driver believes a fifth Winston Cup championship is there for the taking in 2003.
"I want to get my personal stuff behind me. That's not going to happen anytime soon, unfortunately; but now it's not affecting me as much as it was during part of 2002," Gordon says. "I'm kind of just living my life and getting focused to go out and do it (in 2003). Sometimes success is not as far out of your grasp as you think."
Dodging DistractionsGordon can say that in hindsight, having rebounded from as low as 11th in the 2002 points to finish 4th. He went 31 races between wins-from September 30, 2001, until August 24, 2002-an agonizing drought that nearly left the team in tatters. Making matters worse were the constant questions about whether the distractions of divorce proceedings and co-ownership of the team headed by rookie driver Jimmie Johnson had left Gordon unable to focus on his own racing. The edge Gordon had in winning four championships from 1995-2001 seemed to have been lost.
Yet, according to Loomis, it was Gordon who played the primary role in getting the team back on track.
"Jeff was the one all year who calmed the waters," Loomis says. "When we weren't winning, everybody was freaking out. He said, 'Hey, we sat down in December after the banquet and we didn't talk about winning races: We talked about winning a second straight championship and helping Jimmie win Rookie of the Year.' He kept us looking at the goal of what we were working toward, and that kind of calmed us for a little bit."
The 2002 season started off decently enough for Gordon, with lead-lap finishes in the first four events and a pair of Top 10s.
But then, in March, Brooke Gordon, Jeff's wife of seven years, filed for divorce, citing "marital misconduct"-a Florida legal term that covers a multitude of alleged transgressions. The fact that Jeff and Brooke appeared to be the picture-perfect couple-young, dashing championship driver and ravishing former Miss Winston-only made the news of the break-up more intriguing.
Gordon refuses to discuss the particulars of what led to the separation, but he's open about how his marriage upheaval affected him.
"I don't think it was as hard as dealing with the pressure of not winning," Gordon says. "When it keeps being brought up that you haven't won in 25 races, 30 races, that stuff starts to affect you. Each week that goes by without winning, it gets tougher and tougher and tougher.