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
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.
So much calmer, from what I saw in the first race and saw in my mirror in the second race. But you're still going to see crashes, especially near the closing laps of any race.
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.
I am real happy with a top-10. We were way off. I just can't say enough for the DuPont Chevrolet team. If it weren't for the effort of the team and never giving up, we would have been way way back. We got lucky that one time racing Jeff Burton so Mark Martin wasn't able to lap us. We stayed on the lead lap and fought for everything we could and got a top-10. I don't know how we didn't because we certainly didn't have the car to do it tonight.
We had a 14th- or 15th- place car at best, and then we lost two laps when we cut that tire. But all the Hendrick cars were off.
I want to apologize to the fans. That was absolutely uncalled for what happened today. To run that many laps under caution, all the disputes on pit road, I'm embarrassed by it and I want to apologize.
We know that after Richmond (the 26th race) comes, we've got to be in the top-10 and when we are, we'd better be set on 'kill' to go out there and lead laps and win races.
I think with our track record here at Daytona, with the performance that we've got going for us already this week, 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 of the 500.
You're still going to see accidents, you always will. Especially towards the closing laps of a race.
We just want to be able to focus on our program, on our people, on what we have to do to be as strong as we can as a team to compete for wins, compete for championships, and build that together without there being too many outside distractions. If we ever say we want to go under the radar, that's what we're trying to do.
The Roush cars are really, really fast right now.
I've worked with Steve for more than 10 years and we already communicate extremely well, both on and off the track. The team has a ton of confidence in his abilities, so we're looking forward to the last 10 races of 2005 and getting an early jump on next year.
It was a long day. I think we had a shot a top 10 with that tore-up race car.
It was a long day for the Dupont Chevrolet Monte Carlo. We fought back all we could.