![]() by Julian Spivey Jeff Gordon has been a living legend for so long in the sport of NASCAR that you kind of take him for granted. He seems as integral to the sport as the cars themselves, especially for someone like me who’s never known the sport without him and grew up loving the sport in large part because of him. NASCAR without Jeff Gordon is indeed going to be strange, but we still have one more race with him and the living legend may not be done adding to his hall of fame career just yet. Gordon is one of four drivers with a shot at winning the championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday, Nov. 22 and if he’s able to finish it off that’ll instantly go to the top spot on this list, the 10 Greatest Moments of Jeff Gordon’s career. 10. Standing Up For Himself This might be a controversial addition to this list for some fans who don’t like seeing drivers pay others back or fight, but that’s been a part of the sport as long as the sport has existed. It’s important for drivers to both race fellow drivers the way they would like to be raced and to ensure that fellow drivers don’t push them around on track. Gordon has shown himself very capable at not allowing himself to be pushed around whether it was laying the bump and run on NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace for multiple short track wins early on in his career or paying back drivers like Matt Kenseth and Clint Bowyer for roughing him up on the track. He’s also gotten into memorable scrums with guys like Jeff Burton and Brad Keselowski on track. 9. Winston Million When the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company sponsored NASCAR’s premier racing series, then called the Winston Cup, they offered a special prize known as the “Winston Million” from 1985 through 1997 if a driver could win three of the sport’s four marquee events: Daytona 500, Winston 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, Coca Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway and Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. The Winston Million was only accomplished twice – first in the inaugural year of the event when Bill Elliott earned the nickname “Million Dollar Bill” by winning Daytona, Talladega and Darlington and again in the final year of the promotion in 1997 when Jeff Gordon managed to win the Darlington race in a close battle with Jeff Burton after having taken the victories at Daytona and Charlotte. 8. First Win The first win of a driver’s career will always remain one of the most memorable and best moments of their career. Jeff Gordon had entered the sport in the very last race of the 1992 Winston Cup season and was being hailed immediately as the sport’s next biggest thing, especially with that race also being the final one in “The King” Richard Petty’s career. Gordon had a rough go of it in his rookie season of 1993 at the age of 21 with it becoming the first of only three seasons in his 23-year career in which he would not win a race. His sophomore season didn’t get off to the greatest start either in 1994 with him having six finishes outside of the top 20 in the first 10 races of the season. Then the driver, who would soon garner the nickname “Wonder Boy,” all of a sudden found Victory Lane for the first time at Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 29 in the Coca Cola 600, one of NASCAR’s most legendary races, leading just 16 laps in a race dominated by Rusty Wallace and Geoffrey Bodine. The young driver was overcome with tears in one of the most emotional Victory Lane celebrations in the sport’s history. 7. Beating Jimmie Johnson Jeff Gordon has had a lot of special and impressive wins over the 93 times he’s driven to Victory Lane during his illustrious career, but win No. 85 was one of my personal favorites. It came in September of 2011 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The greatest NASCAR finishes are often those when two guys duke it out for a long amount of laps toward the end of the race - it doesn't happen nearly as often as you'd think. It's fun to see a guy lap after lap eat into a leader's lead and try to use different lanes around the track to get around the leader. This is what Gordon's teammate Jimmie Johnson was trying to do that day and as anybody with even a little knowledge of NASCAR knows there is nobody better in the sport than Johnson. It's exhilarating to watch your favorite driver try to hold off the absolute best and a teammate nonetheless for a win, as long as he can hold on to win - Gordon did that on that day. It was a blast to watch. 6. First Brickyard Jeff Gordon’s first career win came in the Coca Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, one of the most important and historic events in the sport’s history. His second win would prove to be even bigger. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway was basically the mother church of auto racing – but it had never held a NASCAR event. When NASCAR announced that the sport would head to Indy in 1994 everybody wanted to make the field for that race, in fact 84 drivers showed up for qualifying (the most in NASCAR history) at the event meaning almost as many people would fail to qualify for the race as would run it. Among those who ran the race would be former Indianapolis 500 and Daytona 500 winner A.J. Foyt, who came out of retirement to do so. With 20 laps to go in the inaugural Brickyard 400 Ernie Irvan led Gordon and the two drivers battled hard for the next few laps exchanging the lead back and forth. With five laps to go in the race Irvan still led when he hit a piece of debris and slid up the track allowing Gordon to take the lead. Irvan’s tire would blow out seconds later. Gordon would cruise on to his second career win and still one of the most important and popular of his career. As long as there is a sport of NASCAR and an Indianapolis Motor Speedway Gordon will be remembered as the first ever winner of the Brickyard 400. 5. First Daytona 500 The biggest race in NASCAR is the Daytona 500. It’s a race that Jeff Gordon has won three times in his career in 1997, 1999 and 2005. The greatest of these has to be the first one in 1997, when at the age of 25, he became the youngest driver in NASCAR history to win the sport’s biggest race (20-year old Trevor Bayne would break that record in 2011). Before the start of the 1997 season it was announced that Hendrick Motorsports owner Rick Hendrick had a life-threatening case of leukemia. Gordon and the entire Hendrick Motorsports team wanted to do something special for Hendrick, but nobody could foresee just how special it would turn out to be. With 10 laps to go in the race Gordon was in a hard fight with Dale Earnhardt, who still had yet to win the Great American Race, when a move to Earnhardt’s inside sent Earnhardt’s No. 3 car up and into the wall. Earnhardt bumping the wall resulted in the No. 88 of Dale Jarrett getting into him and flipping the No. 3. Earnhardt would memorably realize his severely damaged car still had all of its tires up and on it, get out of the ambulance, force the car off of the wrecker and complete the race. The incident set up a final dash for the checkered flag with Gordon in second place with his Hendrick teammates of Terry Labonte and rookie Ricky Craven directly behind him in third and fourth. Bill Elliott had the lead. With five laps to go Gordon shot inside of Elliott to take the race lead with his teammates going to the high side to pass Elliott, as well. With three laps to go a huge wreck behind the leaders forced the race to end under caution with Gordon winning his first Daytona 500 and Hendrick Motorsports taking the first 1-2-3 finish in series history. 4. First Title Much like a driver’s first career win, a first championship is always going to be one of those most memorable moments of your career if you’re so lucky to win one. Jeff Gordon’s first championship came in 1995, at the young age of 23, when he won seven races and only had three DNFs (after having an incredibly high 21 in his first two seasons). Gordon would go on to beat Dale Earnhardt (who had won the two previous championships) by 34 points. Gordon would win three more titles (and could potentially win a fourth on Sunday). The 1995 season was truly a passing of the torch season between Gordon and Earnhardt (who would not win a championship again). 3. Greatest Season Ever Jeff Gordon had what is arguably the greatest season in NASCAR history in 1998, it was certainly the greatest season since NASCAR’s modern era began in 1972. You could argue that a driver like Richard Petty had a greater season before the modern era, but that was at a time in the sport where way more races were run and the competition wasn’t nearly what it’s been during Gordon’s career. Gordon won a modern era record 13 races in 1998, including seven in a nine race span – something that will almost certainly never occur again in the sport. It would be the third consecutive season in which Gordon would win double digit races, something that’s almost never happens in today’s NASCAR. Gordon would win the 1998 championship by an incredible 364 points over runner-up Mark Martin, who actually won seven races that season (typically a number that would lead a season). Gordon’s 13 wins in 1998 was more than one-third of the races during the season. 2. Last Brickyard Win Jeff Gordon is the most dominant NASCAR driver in the history of Indianapolis Motor Speedway with five wins in the Brickyard 400. Gordon’s five Indy wins are tied with Formula 1 legend Michael Schumacher for the most in the track’s legendary history. Gordon’s first win at the Brickyard came in the inaugural race in 1994 (No. 6 on this list), which was just his second career win overall. His final Brickyard 400 win came in 2014 in exciting fashion when he passed his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kasey Kahne on the final restart of the race with around 20 laps to go. Gordon would be the first to admit that since NASCAR adopted a double file restart policy a few years back he hasn’t been the most productive driver in the series when it comes to restarts. At Indy on this day he got one of the better restarts of his career to get around Kahne and drive to victory. It was probably my personal favorite Gordon win until three weeks ago. 1. Last Martinsville Win As long as I’ve been a NASCAR fan I’ve been a Jeff Gordon fan. I was shocked when he announced his impending retirement before the 2015 season, especially given the fact that he would’ve won the championship in 2014 if the sport still competed under the same points only rules that he won his four titles under. Despite his 2014 success, Gordon’s 2015 season had been a disappointment from the start. Midway through the Chase for the Championship it didn’t appear as if Gordon was going to win a race in his farewell season. As a fan that frankly hurt, because his last win at Dover in 2014 none of us had a clue that it could’ve been his final win. Going into Martinsville Speedway three weeks ago I knew if Gordon was going to win one last time this would be the track. He had a good car, but a few drivers like Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski and Matt Kenseth all had better cars. It would take a miracle for Gordon to win the race, which would also qualify him for the title race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Then the miracle happened – a big wreck took out the contending cars of Keselowski, Kenseth and Kurt Busch. Just a few laps later a damaged and many laps down Kenseth got some payback on race leader Joey Logano, who had spun him out to win a race at Kansas Speedway a couple of weeks before. Gordon went from having about the fourth or fifth best car on track to assuming the lead. He fought a hard-charging Jamie McMurray over the last 25 or so laps of the race to win at Martinsville, his winningest track in his career, once again. It was Gordon’s reaction to winning that truly made this a memorable moment. It was almost like he was a 22-year old kid again winning for the very first time. That win also gives him a chance on Sunday to finish what could be a storybook ending by walking off with one last championship.
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