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As Gordon's lead dwindles, even detractors feel sorry
As Gordon's lead dwindles, even detractors feel sorry
By David Caraviello, NASCAR.COM
October 31, 2007
10:40 AM EDT
He's a four-time champion on NASCAR's premier circuit, the sport's most successful active driver, a marketing machine who is married to a supermodel and has a new baby girl at home. He's a sports superstar who's signed thousands of autographs, earned millions of dollars, and somehow managed to be beloved and reviled all at the same time. Now he has a new role, thanks to a playoff system that's taken a runaway title quest and thrust it into doubt.
Meet Jeff Gordon -- underdog.
It's a strange position for a driver who's won 81 races, good enough for sixth all-time and taken home more cash ($88.9 million as of Sunday) than anyone else in the history of the series. But the Chase for the Nextel Cup does strange things. It turns the best stock-car drivers on the planet into kamikaze pilots incapable of avoiding one another. It turns events into caution-plagued marathons. It turns teammates into enemies. Now, it's turned the most decorated driver of his era into a sympathetic hero.
David Caraviello
NASCAR fans may not be the most objective bunch, but many of them have a strong sense of right and wrong. They believe Robby Gordon, despite his childish reaction, was hosed by officials who ordered him back to 13th place late in the Busch race at Montreal. They believe Clint Bowyer, first across the finish line after Greg Biffle slowed and dropped to the bottom of the track under caution, was the rightful winner of the Nextel Cup race at Kansas City. And they think Jeff Gordon is on the verge of being jilted by a playoff system that threatens to wipe out what could have been one of the best seasons in modern history.
Now, clearly it's impossible to extract a genuine representative sample from the millions of people who follow NASCAR each week. This theory isn't the result of any scientific study. But if the e-mails to this Web site are to be believed -- and each writer receives hundreds upon hundreds of them each week -- there's a clear undercurrent of dissatisfaction in the grandstand over what's happened to Gordon. People see the 317-point advantage he complied during the regular season, see the nine-point margin he clings to today, and shake their heads.
Many are Gordon fans, the kind who wear No. 24 gear whether they're watching the race in person or in front of their television; who sent the driver onesies and memory boxes after baby Ella was born; who know the middle name of the team's front tire changer. But there are others who have always pulled against him, who don't like his polished image, yet still write e-mails that begin, "I've never really cared for Jeff Gordon, but ..." They may not like the guy, but that doesn't mean they necessarily like what's happening to him, either.
It's easy to see why. Gordon built his sizeable regular season advantage by recording top-10s in 20 of his first 22 starts, showing the kind of relentless consistency that the old points system prized. But because this revamped Chase placed more of an emphasis on race wins, he started the playoffs 20 points down to Jimmie Johnson. Now he's nine up with three events remaining, but it's Johnson who's won two consecutive races, who has all the momentum, who has his Hendrick Motorsports teammate on the defensive.
In the old system, Gordon would be 439 points ahead of Johnson. He'd have his fifth career title essentially locked up, and be on the brink of finishing with the largest championship margin since Dale Earnhardt beat Mark Martin by 444 points in 1994. Now, despite a similar effort, Gordon could lose the points lead Sunday on a Texas Motor Speedway where he's never won. And to the old guard in the grandstand, the folks who saw Cale Yarborough and Bobby Allison and Earnhardt win championships by showing the same form Gordon is showing now, it doesn't seem right.
If he wanted, Gordon could beat that drum every weekend, reminding people at every turn of the lead he'd have had the Chase not taken it from him. He could rail and argue and demand changes, and everyone would understand. But he has too much of his car owner in him to do that. He's inherited Rick Hendrick's ability to see the bigger picture, to not get lost in the details, to never take his eye off the ball. Sure, there are plenty of people out there who believe Gordon is a victim of a contrived points system. In his own private moments, he probably agrees. But he's not going to say it publicly, and he's not going to let it affect his performance.
"I've always been a person that, you know, you put as much effort into it as you can, you put the best team together that you can. You work hard and if it's meant to happen, it's meant to happen," he said after finishing seventh at Atlanta. "You know, there are certain things out there that we can control. We control those. The things we can't control, we can't do anything about anyway. If those guys flat-out beat us by five or six positions the next three weeks, I'm going to go and high-five Jimmie and say congratulations. If we can slide our good finishes in there and maybe even get some wins before this thing is over, then we did the job we set out to do."
It's a classy stance, and it's one reason why some people who have never particularly liked Jeff Gordon are beginning to sympathize with him now. And that, ultimately, may be a more enduring accomplishment than even winning the title.
The opinions expressed are those solely of the writer
The End
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