As I crossed into my thirties I started noticing little things that were starting to make me feel older. People born in the 2000’s are in high school, a little less hair covers the back of my head, people in their 20’s look like babies, etc., etc. Now, Jeff Gordon is going to run his final full season in the Cup Series. Wait, isn’t his nickname “The Kid”? Is the “Wonder Boy” now a grizzled old “Wonder Man”? The “Rainbow Warrior” is walking off into the sunset? Where does the time go?
Drive for Five Continues in Gordon’s Last Season
The man who famously started his Cup career 1992, in the same race in which Richard Petty finished his, has surely secured himself as a legend in the sport. Gordon has racked up 92 wins in his 22 year career and thus far has won on every track that has been on the schedule since then, except for Kentucky Speedway. In his defense Kentucky has only been on the Cup schedule since 2011 so he’s only had four shots at it so far. While piling up the wins he’s also taken four Cup Championships. He has been making the Drive for Five since his last championship in 2001 which wrapped up an impressive six year span from 1996-2001 which he won all four of those championships.
Gordon has won all of his championships and run every race of his Cup career in a Hendrick Motorsports car. In 1999 there were rumors of Gordon moving with his crew chief Ray Evernham to Dodge and the newly formed Evernham Motorsports. Gordon had only driven with Evernham on top of the pit box and had lots of success with the duo winning three championships together. The rumors of Gordon leaving with his longtime crew chief were put to rest when Gordon signed a lifetime contract to drive for Rick Hendrick for the rest of his days in a Cup car. Gordon is still looking for a fifth championship to add to the Hendrick banner and his first championship under the Chase format.
The Chase era has certainly skewed the amount of championships that certain drivers have attained. The Chase system has benefitted Gordon’s teammate Jimmie Johnson. Johnson has moved into the upper echelon of drivers with six titles under the various Chase formats which have certainly kept Gordon’s trophy case from expanding. Under the classic cumulative points system Gordon would be in the elite class of champions himself with Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt Sr. with titles in 2004, 2007, and this past season in 2014 bringing his total to seven along with Petty and Sr. Instead we saw Kurt Busch, Johnson, and Kevin Harvick win those titles under the new format. Despite the seeming lack of championships for Gordon I don’t think there is any doubt he is every bit as good as Petty, Dale, and Jimmie.
He is a man that is still at the top of his game and is still mentioned week in and week out as one of the drivers to beat every Sunday. He is more than capable of winning the 2015 championship and will be doing everything he can to do so. So why make this year his final full season? Is it to focus more on family, or his charities or to start transitioning to a bigger role in the shop rather than in the seat? Whatever his reasons are it is nice to see a driver go out while he’s still on top. He mentioned that he won’t be fully retiring and plans on staying busy and possibly racing in selected events let’s just hope the selected events he chooses aren’t in the form of start and parking underfunded teams like some former champions have gone on to do.
With the legend moving on there is only one thing left to do…replace him with the next best thing. That appears to be current and youngest Xfinity Series Champion, 18 year old Chase Elliott. Elliott is the son of Awesome Bill From Dawsonville, Bill Elliott, who is a NASCAR legend in his own right. In 33 races last season Chase finished out of the top 10 just seven times and only one of those was finishes was out of the top 20. Those are impressive stats for a rookie driver in any series even without tacking on a championship trophy and three wins against a field of drivers that included several top level Cup drivers running extra races in the lower series. Could Elliott be the next “Kid”? We’ll get a look at “Wonder Boy 2.0” this season as he is slated to run a select number of races in the Cup series while also defending his Xfinity Series title.
Whether you were an Earnhardt fan or a Rusty Wallace fan, or anybody else, and you hated Gordon from the 1990’s onward there is no denying that this season we’ll be seeing a special talent round the tracks across the U.S. one more time. I just hope we’ll get to see that moustache and the Rainbow Warrior paint scheme at least one more time before he puts it away for good.
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