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
At Talladega, you worry about the big one that takes out 17 cars. Here, you worry about the 17 little ones that take out several cars. You're always racing with people around you so you don't have anywhere to go when things go wrong. And believe me, a lot of things go wrong.
We have to keep our fans watching not just at home on TV but here at the racetrack too. This is where you sell people on the speed and excitement of racing.
It was more to get ready for this year. We had new people on board and we tried to build some momentum. We can't really jump to many conclusions here.
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.
When you win four championships, you create a lot of expectations that you are supposed to be in the mix every year. This year we fell short, but no matter what people believe or what the perception is, we are doing everything possible to get back in there next season.
Some people look at me like I knew I was going to fight. Some people are just laughing at me. I just didn't take it off because I was in a hurry to get out of the car. I was that angry.
I don't feel like I've really changed. Maybe I have let people see more of me than in the past.
You are going to make choices and decisions that sometimes aren't going to always work in your favor and they are going to upset some other people.
I know people have asked me, 'Why haven't you done that? Why haven't you done that?' I've never really felt like it was my place to do that. I feel like over the years that I've been here that I've earned more respect, but I don't know if I'll ever have the type of respect that Dale had.
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.