Jeff Gordon

Jeff Gordon
Jeffery Michael "Jeff" Gordonis an American semi-retired professional stock car racing driver and currently an announcer for Fox NASCAR. He formerly drove the No. 24 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports in 23 full-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series seasons between 1993 and 2015, and currently serves as a substitute driver for Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRace Car Driver
Date of Birth4 August 1971
CityVallejo, CA
CountryUnited States of America
The season has gone in cycles. Guys that ran really strong at the beginning of the year maybe haven't run as strong in the middle. There's no reason that cycle can't come to us as well, and I'm sure that there are teams out there that would prefer not to find out if that cycle comes our way.
Right now, they're getting a ton of publicity because the focus is on the guys that are battling for the Chase.
Our deal could have been avoided. A lot of them could have been avoided. I saw a lot of things just out of control. I saw a lot of guys out there driving aggressive. If you bump someone, something is going to eventually happen. I was a little bit anxious.
Some weeks guys do a fantastic job, other weeks ... you never know. Something may have happened that he was just ticked off. You don't know. Sometimes things set you off to where you don't want to get out of anybody's way, you're mad that you're a lap down, you're mad your car is wrecked, maybe it wasn't your fault, you're not thinking about being kind to the guy coming up behind you.
I would love to see Jimmie get in position where I could get behind him and help him all I can. I am going to work as hard as I can to get myself into that position. He certainly has helped me plenty of times, and I want those guys to win the championship and I'm going to do everything that I can to help them.
I think having those no-bumping zones out there did make a difference. There was certainly some desperation for the guys who had to race their way into the 500, but I think we saw a heck of lot less crashes than we would have seen without NASCAR making that change.
I think from what I've seen so far, the guys are doing a fantastic job. We've just been seeing this trend more and more over the last six, eight years of rookies just being able to come in and perform well, win races and put consistency together and also come in with strong race teams.
Usually when you make up 52 points it's easy. It's not difficult. It's because something happens. You don't make it up because a guy ran bad and you went out there and led every lap and won the race.
When I first came in the sport, it was sort of like his time to be the top guy. I don't think he was expecting a young guy ... to come out as strong as we did and become as popular as we did. He and I kind of had a rivalry starting in 1994 and it carried on for a number of years.
I'd like to think that we're one of the favorites. But whether we're the guy to beat or not, we'll find out in the closing laps.
Obviously, anything in the tri-oval or the corners is completely out of line and shouldn't happen. You've got a ton more momentum than the guy in front of you and you don't even check up, you just run straight, square into the back of him and you start to see the guy get out of control.
When you put him in that position, how does he go from being one of the guys to all of a sudden being the boss? How is he going to deal with the guys? That's the part I've been impressed with. He came right in there and took control and got the guys that support him to support him more and the guys that didn't to either support him or they were out the door.
There are some people that maybe have gotten caught up thinking I'm just a guy that lets things go. I feel like it takes a lot to make me mad, but I still get mad. Lately I haven't been afraid to show it.
We won the 150, and we're on the front row and we won the Daytona 500 last year and the Talladega race. I think that's enough for guys to know we're on the radar screen. I would hope that people would think we're one of the guys to beat.