The Real King

Retired Richard Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt have their seven Winston Cup championships, and Petty has his seemingly unattainable 200 wins, but the best stock car driver who ever pulled into victory lane may be starting today’s Daytona 500 from the inside of the second row.

Jeff Gordon has accomplished more, in such a short time and at such a young age, than any of the legendary icons of NASCAR who have raced from the sandy ruts of Daytona’s beach course to the high banks of Daytona International Speedway.

He is only 30, yet he already has four Winston Cup titles and is favored to win his fifth as the 36-race 2002 season gets underway today. When they were 30, Petty had two and Earnhardt one.

He has already won 58 races and 39 poles in only 293 races over nine seasons. He is seventh in career Winston Cup victories. Earnhardt, who is sixth, needed 676 races to win his 76. Many of Petty’s 200 victories were made in an era in which there were as many as 61 races in a season, nearly twice as many as in Gordon’s time.

No one with 50 victories or more has a winning percentage as high as Gordon’s 19.8. Petty’s is 17.0 and Earnhardt’s 11.2.

Gordon is the only one to be named American Driver of the Year four times, an award that includes Indy car, sports car, midget, sprint car and drag race drivers as well as NASCAR. His career winnings of $45.7 million are No. 1.

When he won the 1997 Daytona 500, he was its youngest winner, 25 years 6 months 12 days. He won his second in 1999 in his seventh try. It took Petty nine years to win two and it took Earnhardt 20 years before he won his first and only one.

“So much emphasis is put on the Daytona 500 because it is our Super Bowl, World Series and Olympics all combined that you have to remember that this is only one of 36 points races,” said Gordon as crew chief Robbie Loomis was putting final touches on his No. 24 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. The car has a special paint scheme celebrating DuPont’s 200th anniversary and DuPont’s chief executive officer, Chad Holliday, will serve as today’s grand marshal.

“Everybody wants to win this race because of the prestige and it also provides a jump-start to the new season, but you don’t necessarily need a good finish here to win the championship.”

A case in point is last year, when Gordon finished 34th before rallying to win Winston Cup No. 4.

An ever-pleasant smile and little-boy look belies the fact that Gordon can be as tough as Earnhardt, as cunning as Petty and as daring as Junior Johnson.

Few passes in NASCAR history have been more dramatic than Gordon’s dash across the pit apron and across the grass to sweep past a stunned Rusty Wallace to steal the 1999 Daytona 500.

You want tough?

Gordon has had finger-pointing run-ins with a number of drivers, including Wallace, Ricky Rudd, Tony Stewart, Robby Gordon and others.

“You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do,” explained Gordon. “If a guy wants to race me clean, I’ll try and do the same, but if I get cut off or hit from behind, that guy had better watch out. He can expect to get it back. Sometimes, though, it happens that you can’t control your car and you just give him a little bump to move him out of the way.”

That statement could have just as easily come from Earnhardt, the Intimidator himself.

“No one’s meaner out there than Jeff when he’s got the finish line in sight,” said Wallace. “He’ll jump on the roof and smile and wave after he wins, but you’d better watch out when he’s coming at you.”

For his first six years in NASCAR, Gordon heard that his success was spoon-fed by crew chief Ray Evernham and when Evernham left the team and Gordon slipped to ninth in points, Gordon detractors gloated.

Gordon and team owner Rick Hendrick chose Loomis from Petty’s team and after a season jelling in 2000 they came together last year for six victories, six poles and a championship.

“Every one is special, but I’ll admit I got more satisfaction from winning last year than the earlier ones,” Gordon said.

He is more upbeat about racing here this year because of the new aerodynamic rules that eliminated the air strips on the roof that helped create packs of as many as 20 cars racing three-wide so close together that they couldn’t maneuver. Most drivers were holding on, hoping no one would make a mistake and cause “the Big One,” which indeed, did happen last year when Tony Stewart’s car catapulted in the air and landed on top of Bobby Labonte’s car.

“I never want to run a race like last year’s,” he said. “This won’t be like that. The spectators may have loved it, but as a driver it was frightening.

“This year there should be a lot of great racing and side-by-side action, but not all that bunching up. I don’t think it will be as boring as 2000. It’ll be more like the 1999, ‘98, ’97 race.

“It’s not going to be the same, though, without Dale. I know we’ll move on and the sport will continue to grow, but in my mind there’s something missing. There were times when I dreaded seeing that black No. 3 in my mirror and there were times when I didn’t. If you were racing him, you knew you were racing the best there was.

“If you beat him, you knew you accomplished something far greater than you could ever imagine. If you got beat by him, you knew you got beat by the best. I’ll never forget the memories I have with Dale here at Daytona and there are some things I’m doing out there today that I learned from him and that I credit him for bringing me to this level.

“He started out as the guy that I learned from and then he turned into the guy that I knew was going to be the toughest competition out there every time I came to Daytona. It’s just not the same without him.”

There is a strong Earnhardt presence in the race, however.

Dale Earnhardt Jr., who finished second to Michael Waltrip last year and then came back to win the July race, will be starting fifth, directly behind Gordon. He and Waltrip are teammates with Dale Earnhardt Inc., which is being run by Teresa Earnhardt, Dale’s widow.

Although the number has been changed from 3 to 29, Kevin Harvick--who will start alongside Johnson on the front row--is driving Earnhardt’s old Chevrolet for Richard Childress, for whom the elder Dale drove for the last 18 years before his death.

Starting on the pole, just in front of Gordon as they take the green flag, will be Gordon’s hand-picked protege, rookie driver Jimmie Johnson.

Asked how he would race Johnson, Gordon grinned and said, “Like a rookie.

“I think we’re going to be able to bring him along really fast, but he’s got a lot to learn. I wasn’t on the pole here my first year, but I did have a good finish. I ran second behind Earnhardt in the closing laps and I didn’t have a clue as to what I was doing or what I was going to do when I came down to the white flag. That’s pretty much why I finished fifth. I learned a lot right then. And I’m still learning.”

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DAYTONA 500

Today at Daytona International Speedway, Daytona Beach, Fla.

9:30 a.m., TV: Channel 4

The race: 500 miles, 200 laps on a 2.5-mile high-banked, asphalt tri-oval speedway

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The Facts

WHAT: Daytona 500 NASCAR Winston Cup Series Race No. 1 of 36

WHERE: Daytona International Speedway, Daytona Beach, Fla. 2.5-mile high-banked, asphalt trioval speedway

WHEN: Today, 9:30 a.m. TV: Channel 4 (Live) Pre-race show: 9 a.m. Race coverage: 9:30 a.m.

DISTANCE: 500 Miles / 200 Laps

FIELD: Consists of the fastest 36 cars through time trials. Also, seven provisional starting positions based on 2001 owner points, for maximum 43-car field. The 43rd position is reserved for a past NWCS champion, if needed. If unused, it will go to the next eligible owner.

THE RACE TRACK: Daytona International Speedway is a trioval superspeedway with 31-degree banking in the turns, 18-degree banking in the trioval and six-degree banking on the straightaways. Daytona has hosted the Daytona 500 for 44 years.

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Best of the Best

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