No Boundaries

It wasn’t long after Jeff Gordon won his fourth NASCAR Winston Cup title that the question was asked: Now that Gordon has won four titles by the age of 30, can he win four more to become the first eight-time Winston Cup champion? Unless something dramatic happens to Gordon, it appears certain that the Hendrick Motorsports driver will achieve that goal by the end of his career. What makes four more titles so important is it would surpass Richard Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt, the two drivers who share the NASCAR record of seven Winston Cup championships.

“My goal in life’s not to get seven or eight championships,” Gordon says. “My goals constantly change, and I want to continue to be competitive and successful in this business and that is not always going to mean that you are winning the championship. I want to give this team everything that I can, and I want to see them getting everything out of themselves that they can and be proud of what they have accomplished and having fun.

“As hectic as life is and this business is, we have to try to enjoy it and have fun. To me, that overrides whether or not we accomplish eight championships or seven championships.”

As Gordon continues to become the dominant driver of his era, part of his charm is his “aw shucks” humility. It would be easy for Gordon to point to his tremendous accomplishments as a driver, but he is just as amazed as anybody else at what he has accomplished in a Winston Cup career that began with the final race of the 1992 season.

That is why he genuinely believes winning four more titles is a tremendous obstacle, while others believe it’s only a matter of time.

“I have no idea if I can get four more because I wasn’t expecting to get the fourth,” Gordon says. “Last season was somewhat of a surprise. It was a great year. I think we knew we were going to have a much better year than we had in 2000, but I don’t think we had any idea we were going to be coming out and doing what we have done.

“Anything is possible, but it has taken an awful lot to get four. I know it has happened quick in your minds, but to me it’s been a lot of hard work and dedication to get that. If we stay committed and we continue to have the resources, I hope I have that same drive to do it.”

Early Greatness

To those who have to compete against Gordon nearly every week, they understand why he is the best driver in NASCAR. And at least one living legend believes Gordon will win four more titles and become the sport’s first eight-time Winston Cup champion.

“It’s just how long he wants to do it,” Richard Petty says. “If he wants to go for eight championships, then he can probably get them. But he started so early you wonder when he will get burned out on all of this. He’s the only one that is even close to being able to do it right now with his youth and the team he has around him. It’s very, very possible he can win four more as far as that is concerned.”

Benny Parsons won the 1973 NASCAR Winston Cup championship when the season title was based on miles completed. Since that time, the point structure has been changed to reward consistency.

Parsons raced against Petty when he was the dominant driver in the 1970s, and competed against Earnhardt in the ’80s. He also saw Earnhardt’s greatness continue in the ’90s when Parsons was a television analyst for ESPN and ABC Sports.

Now, as a member of NBC Sports, Parsons can appreciate the greatness that Gordon has displayed at such an early age.

“There is no doubt that he can rewrite most of the records except the 200 wins,” Parsons says, referring to Petty’s 200 career victories. “Obviously, I don’t think he is going to achieve that, but most of the other records, he should be able to.

“The reason for Jeff Gordon’s success is he has a tremendous feel for the car. He is able to come in and tell the crew chief what the car is doing so they can fix it. He is a huge part of the success of that team. Everyone gave Ray Evernham the credit for Jeff Gordon’s first three titles when he was Jeff’s crew chief. Evernham deserved a lot of credit, but they have won races since he left and they have won a championship since he left.

“Jeff Gordon is a tremendous talent, plus he understands what to do. When Ray Evernham left, Jeff Gordon stepped up to become a bigger part of that. He is not an idiot. He knew he had to step up and he did.”

Near-Perfect Seasons

Since Gordon won his first Winston Cup title in 1995, the only drivers who have won the championship since are Terry Labonte in 1996, Dale Jarrett in 1999, and Bobby Labonte in 2000.

Jarrett knows it takes almost a perfect season to win the championship, and Gordon has often driven near perfection throughout his career. That is why Jarrett believes four more titles are Gordon’s, if he really wants them. “It depends on how long he wants to go at this,” Jarrett says. “If you look at where Dale Earnhardt was, almost 50 years old and still very competitive, Jeff definitely has 15 more years he could do this, and with his talent he could win a lot more in this sport.

“You can do it, you just have to have almost a perfect year like what I did and what Bobby Labonte did in 2000. You have to put it all together for a long period of time. They have proven they can do that. You can do it, but it is becoming more and more difficult. For as good a year as they have had, they were struggling at the end of the season.”

Jarrett came up in an era when drivers breaking into Winston Cup racing had to start with a bottom-rung team before getting a chance to move up to a better operation. Jarrett struggled with lesser teams before he finally earned a chance to compete for the Wood Brothers, where he scored his first victory in 1991.

That earned him an opportunity to race for team owner Joe Gibbs, and he would go on to win the 1993 Daytona 500. Two years later, Jarrett joined Robert Yates Racing and would ultimately score his only Winston Cup championship in 1999. By contrast, Gordon began his Winston Cup career at Hendrick Motorsports working with Evernham, one of the brightest crew chiefs of his era.

“It makes a difference whenever you can get in good equipment from the beginning. Your learning curve is much shorter,” Jarrett says. “You learn how to win and drive top-notch equipment from the very beginning rather than struggling through that time. Your confidence goes up and it is easier to find your way to the top and get yourself with a winning organization like that from the beginning.”

When Evernham left Hendrick Motorsports in September 1999 to begin a project that would lead Dodge back into the sport after a two-decade absence, Gordon continued to win races, but the team faltered from its championship status. Gordon helped persuade Robbie Loomis to join Hendrick Motorsports as the crew chief beginning in 2000 and the combination reached fruition in 2001.

“They are both very talented, but you have to figure they are going to work well together,” Jarrett says. “They both have a lot of talent, a lot of respect for each other. When you put talent together, you are going to have good results.”

While Jarrett admits Gordon has the look of greatness, team owner Robert Yates isn’t about to claim Gordon as an eight-time champion in waiting. “If we take the attitude that he is going to whip us all the time, he probably will,” Yates says. “We are going to go get him next year. He can’t win next year.

“He is good, he is great. He has awesome equipment and he’s an awesome driver. But he can be beat. That is what our plans are. We are going to beat the little sucker.”

The competitive side of Yates wants to beat Gordon, but he also has a deep appreciation for what makes the driver great.

“Jeff Gordon brings everything he needs to as a driver,” Yates says. “Rick Hendrick provides everything he needs to in the equipment with some great people there and a great organization. They are just flat tough to beat anyway.”

Petty was the face of NASCAR racing during his lengthy racing career. The mere mention of NASCAR conjured up visions of Petty driving the famous No. 43 at Daytona and other circuits on the schedule.

Mention NASCAR today, and the immediate vision is Gordon driving the No. 24 Chevrolet to another checkered flag.

“I think he is really good for the sport,” Petty says. “When it first started, you had some people, but you didn’t have any press. I came along and didn’t have that much press, but I filled up a gap. Then, you had Dale Earnhardt come along and he fills up a gap. Now, you have Jeff Gordon taking it from one era into another era.

“Right now, he is our spokesperson, as far as racing is concerned, because that’s our winner. He is doing a good job. We have so many new fans who don’t know how rough it used to be. They look at football, baseball and basketball. I think he brings it up to a new level of awareness with the new fans.”

Tackling Stock Cars

To be compared to Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt is quite an honor to a young driver who was headed to an Indy car career in the late ’80s. Gordon moved from California to Pittsboro, Indiana, as a teenager for a chance to continue his open-wheel racing career in the ’80s.

“I always knew the name Richard Petty, I just didn’t follow stock car racing that much,” Gordon says. “If I just go back 10 years ago, or even 15 years ago, stock car racing was still something that was looked at as a Southeastern kind of thing. A lot of us didn’t know how huge it was or the fan base that it had. “Growing up in California, I didn’t know much about it. To me, it was all about sprint cars because that is what was going on around my area and it was all about the Indianapolis 500.”

Then one day Gordon had a conversation with a man who put an idea into his head.

“What really got it started for me was Larry Nuber,” Gordon says of the late television broadcaster. “Because he did some commentating on ESPN on NASCAR races, he asked me if I had thought about stock cars. I said I hadn’t. He told me I really needed to try to drive one. I asked how I would do that and he told me about the Buck Baker Driving School.

“So I went down there and said, ‘Man, I love this. This is cool. This is an awesome racetrack at Rockingham. It’s got high banks; it’s fast. Man, this is what I like, right here.’

“That’s when I locked onto NASCAR. I started watching and listening to everything that I could. Unfortunately, it was toward the end of Richard’s career. That is why I got criticized in 1993 and 1994, maybe even 1995, not knowing the history of the sport and all that Richard Petty had done. I’ve had to educate myself since then.”

Gordon’s first Winston Cup race came in the final race of Petty’s career. It was the last race of the 1992 season, and Gordon drove the No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet in a 500-mile race at Atlanta Motor Speedway in preparation for his 1993 rookie season. It’s as if the baton was being handed from the outgoing king to the boy king.

“People were saying, this is Jeff Gordon’s first race and he may be somebody to watch in the future and here is Richard Petty’s last race,” Gordon says. “Maybe it was just because I was the new guy that day. I don’t know, but it was very cool to be mentioned in the same sentence that day and it was pretty cool for me to be a part of that event because it was Richard’s last event. I got a chance to see him in action, in the garage area, on the racetrack, and to experience that is something that I’ll never forget.”

Dueling With Dale

Gordon only had one opportunity to race against Petty, but he enjoyed many battles with Earnhardt.

“Dale Earnhardt was in his prime when I started thinking about driving,” Gordon says. “To me, Dale Earnhardt was a bigger name at the time than Richard Petty was because he was the guy winning championships at that time. To come and race against him was something.

“I don’t think I ever appreciated him by just hearing about him or watching him on TV. It was when I got to race against him and see just how good I was.” Gordon says the one thing he missed most about winning his fourth Winston Cup title was having Earnhardt come up to him and give him one of his famous pinches or headlocks that the NASCAR legend often gave his friends and competitors as a sign of affection.

“You get caught up in what goes on here every weekend and you don’t necessarily get a chance to think and reflect on that,” he says. “The times I had with Dale and the great races we had, I miss that.

“Nobody is ever going to be able to replace that.”

Four More?

When Gordon clinched his fourth Winston Cup title in a career that began just nine years ago, the 30-year-old driver could have been excused if he had a message for all of his detractors.

In 2000, when Gordon was struggling to a ninth-place finish in the series and was no longer the driver to beat in nearly every race, the anti-Gordon crowd crowed that without Evernham as his crew chief, Gordon’s glory days were over. Washed up at 29.

Nothing could have been more absurd. It was just a matter of time before Gordon regained his championship luster.

Gordon says, “You have to love the critics. They are writing what is on their minds and they can inspire you in a lot of ways. They certainly inspired me and this team.”

Gordon’s Winston Cup titles in 1995, 1997 and 1998 came with Evernham in charge of the team at Hendrick Motorsports. Together, they formed one of the best crew chief/driver combinations in NASCAR history.

Gordon’s fourth title was with Loomis as the crew chief.

“This championship is a lot different than the first three,” Gordon says. “The year is so special because of the last two years. We had to rebuild and we had to come together, basically, as a new team. We had to climb the mountain again. “Because of all the adversity we have had to overcome the last couple of years, it has made this year even sweeter.”

By scoring his fourth Winston Cup title by the age of 30, Gordon is halfway home to breaking the record of seven titles shared by Petty and Earnhardt. Are four more titles a realistic goal? Gordon has been too busy enjoying his latest title to give it much thought.

“This is blowing me away,” he says. “It hasn’t sunk in yet. We want to get it done first, then I can start reflecting on the year and what has gone on in my career. I’m just pretty proud to have four.

“It’s been an amazing ride.”