Jeff
Gordon greets the press, calm, cool, collected. |
As race fans, many of us have quite literally watched Jeff Gordon grow up. From a slightly geeky teenager, whom we saw interviewed on the ESPN Thunder shows after he had won a race in a midget, sprint or Silver Crown car. When he started driving in Busch, we would see him being interviewed after winning a pole or a race, where he was a baby-faced youngster just out of his teens with that funny little mustache, one he had apparently grown to make him look older. Then, still in his early twenties, he showed up in the Dupont #24 Winston Cup car. We started to see him being interviewed after poles and wins, where he always seemed to deserve the label of Wonder Boy on two levels, because of his success and obvious youth but also because he always seemed surprised and almost amazed (wonderment?) to be doing so well.
This is about the time we started to hear about someone else in the same breath when Jeff was mentioned: Ray Evernham. It turns out that Jeff's crew chief, Ray Evernham had been partners with Jeff all through his Busch days and had come to Hendricks as part of the package for the 24 team.
Apparently Ray Evernham was a big part of the winning combination that saw Jeff win 47 Winston Cup races and 3 Championships. He served as crew chief for the team and seemingly as personal mentor and coach for Jeff on race day. Late in the 1999 season Jeff and Ray parted ways, Ray to become a team owner and a driving force for the Dodge cars entering WC racing in 2001. Jeff decided to stay with Rick Hendricks as more than just the driver of the 24 car. He acquired part ownership in his team and signed a lifetime contract with Hendricks to drive the 24 car.
Many fans and observers have attributed most or even all of Jeff's early success in Busch and Winston Cup to Ray Evernham and the team he built up around Jeff. To believe this, one has to ignore the hundreds of wins and no less than 4 championships in quarter midgets, go-karts, midgets, sprint and Silver Crown cars that Jeff accumulated over his 15 or so years as a race car driver before he met Ray, or started stock car racing. Even so, nearly everyone seems to agree that the team of Evernham and Gordon was a formidable one. Any combination that can win ROY in 1993 and then 42 WC races plus 3 championships in just 5 years, from 1994 through 1998, is clearly doing something right. You could even say they were doing just about everything right.
Introduced
during the Winston earlier this year, the crew has
gelled under Loomis. |
Their seventh year in Winston Cup, 1999, started out great, with a big win in the Daytona 500. And there were 4 more wins that year before Ray Evernham left Hendricks Motors. But the point's race had gotten away from them in 1999. Jeff finished 6th in drivers points; apparently the pending changes had created just too many distractions. Brian Whitesell, regularly the car chief, finished out the '99 season as Jeff's crew chief, and this pairing had 2 immediate wins, but Brian wasn't really comfortable as crew chief so it turned out to be an interim arrangement. Brian Whitesell was promoted to team manager when Jeff asked Robbie Loomis to come with the team as crew chief. Jeff and Robbie formed a new team for the 2000 season.
The 24 team had not only lost its crew chief, but among others; Ray took with him the head mechanic, the head engine assembler and the head fabricator. Then at the end of the 1999 season the team lost most of the well-publicized "Rainbow Warriors" pit crew. They left in mass to go to the 88 team. So with the exception of Brian Whitesell, who stayed on and was a major continuity factor for the team, Jeff and Robbie Loomis had to put together virtually a whole new team for the 2000 season. But make no mistake; this time Jeff had a big hand in the composition and focus of the 24 team. Jeff and Robbie Loomis meshed very nicely, both in their low-key manner and dedication to the forming of a winning team. Of course they had the enormous resources of the Hendricks organization behind them.
The 2000 season was a rocky one, with just three wins and a ninth place finish in the driver points--Jeff's worst finish since his rookie year. This rather difficult 2000 season had all the pundits agreeing with themselves "Yup, it had been all Ray Evernham". But what very few seemed to acknowledge or even realize was that the 24 team was basically brand new, a team with new people in just about all the key positions, except of course, Brian Whitesell and the driver. And this new team was absolutely a reflection of both Jeff Gordon and Robbie Loomis, rather than just any one person. For anyone who follows the 24 team closely it becomes apparent pretty quickly that things are a lot different in 2001 than they have ever been. Jeff and Robbie work together on nearly all the things that previously and been Ray Evernham's province. They work together on car setups, on pit road strategy and what changes to make to the car. In other words, it is now much more a Jeff Gordon team than just a team with Jeff Gordon as the driver. You might even say that Jeff has "grown up" with these changes, you can see a marked difference in him, he even looks different, I'm not sure just how, but he now seems more grown up, a more self-assured, mature man. He is still young by Winston Cup standards at 30, but he no longer even warrants the modifier of "young" in front of "man" when referring to him. And the moniker of "Wonder Boy" is long gone.
Is
there a Wolfman in there? |
The 2001 season turned out to be a big step forward for the 24 team, with the complete team coming together into a single entity. This, plus the communication between Jeff and Robbie, moved them all to a whole new level. All of this resulted in the most wins in Winston Cup for 2001, at 6, the most top 10's with 24 and the most top 5's with 18. Not to mention Jeff gained more bonus points, by a pretty hefty margin. But Jeff and Robbie will be the first to acknowledge that the season was far from perfect. There were a couple of races where late race pit strategy cost them a win. A missed call on leaving the pits in the Charlotte 600 cost them a bunch of points. A minor collision with Kenny Wallace when Jeff was leaving his pit stall messed up the aero package and resulted in a 29th place finish. This was after Jeff had won The Winston the week before and appeared to have the car to beat in the 600. On the other hand, Jeff and Robbie repeatedly worked together to take a car that wasn't very good and improved it during a race to finish well. The Las Vegas and Brickyard races are excellent examples of this developing communication between Robbie and Jeff which allowed them, with a combination of driving ability, adjustments to the car and pit strategy to take a car from 24th and 27th starting positions to win the race.
Certainly Jeff's driving talent is a major part of the equation, but there are a lot of really talented drivers in Winston Cup. Most of them are in first-rate cars with top teams behind them. We see them week after week at the front of the pack. Sometimes they don't start there, but by mid-race they have usually worked their way into the top 10. All of the Winston Cup drivers are real racers: they want to be up front, they want to lead the race, lead every lap if possible, and Jeff is no different in that regard. When he has the horse to do it, you see him right at the front; the
fact that he led the most laps this season is no accident.
But Jeff also exhibits a couple of qualities that tend to set him apart from most of the other drivers. He consistently drives a very "tactical" race. In military terms "tactical" denotes relatively short-term operations that are characterized by "adroitness", "ingenuity" and "skill". In this regard Jeff will save his tires, his brakes and the car early in the race. Racing no harder than he has to, if the car is comfortable running up front, that is where he drives it, but if the car isn't really up to it at the start, he drives very defensively, staying out of trouble till he can get the car better and work his way to the front. One of the ways this defensive driving is clearly discernable is when he is setting someone up for a pass going into a corner. Nearly always you can see his car appear to almost hesitate as they enter the turn, until Jeff determines the car ahead is actually going to leave room on the bottom for the pass. If the room is there, he will complete the pass. If the other driver comes down the track Jeff will simply wait a lap or two and make the pass coming out of the corner so he will be clear up beside the other car going into the next corner.
This is very clean racing, but he is also protecting both his own car and avoiding any chance of being involved in an accident. One of the things that really lend itself to this style of racing is that he usually qualifies quite well--he has never had to use a provisional. Most of the time his good starting position allows him to stay on the lead lap, even if the car is terrible at the start of the race. He just drives defensively back in the pack until they can get the car right. At the start and on restarts after a yellow you will see how he frequently falls back for a few laps, if not losing positions, at least holding up a line of cars behind him. It would appear his car is slower, but before long he has left these cars behind and is passing cars and moving forward. In most instances he was just allowing his tires to come up to pressure and saving them for later in a long run. In other words, thinking tactically, with the best finish possible the goal for the day. In hand with his tactical style during the race, he also employs a strategic or long term approach to the season: winning the championship is the overall goal.
This is why on days when he doesn't have the car to run up front, he doesn't beat it to death or drive it into the ground, he just tries to get the most he possible can out of it that day and goes on to the next race. This is looking at the big picture strategically for the season. This is simply the smart, cool headed racing that almost everyone recognizes in Jeff. In fact, I believe many fans mistake this calm and cool approach in a race as a lack of emotion, but don't believe this for a second. Jeff brings an enormous amount of emotion to his driving; he just doesn't let it get in the way of his objectives. When he does display this emotion is near the end of the race. That is when he becomes a different person behind the wheel, different from the politically correct Gordon we see in the TV interviews and the calm, cool thinking driver we see for most of the race. Near the end of the race, when it gets down to "winning time", this is when the Jeff Gordon no one ever sees comes out.
Jeff
Gordon at speed at Pocono Raceway. |
No one gets a look at this Jeff Gordon because of the full-face helmet and gloves, but I think he becomes Wolfman Gordon, with fangs and all hairy hands and face, but then I'm just speculating on all this from his on track actions. He still drives a clean race but in his own words, the "intensive competition factor takes over". This is when he gets wild and just drives with his heart: example, the wild last-lap pass of Jeff Burton for the lead going into the bus stop turns at Watkins Glen this year. Neither Jeff thought it could be done--but--did this stop Jeff Gordon? Oh no he drove that 24 car down into the corner really hard to make the pass and win the race. This wasn't conservative racing by any stretch of the imagination; this was a Wolfman move to win the race without regard for the consequences.
In the Bristol race this year near the end Jeff was going for 4th place and Tony Stewart had it. You know Tony's spotter had told him Jeff was there but Tony also knew that Jeff will almost always back off to save his car, but what Tony didn't realize, it wasn't the regular Jeff Gordon making this pass, being this near the end of the race, it was the dreaded, "Wolfman Gordon", who doesn't give an inch. In fact he might have even turned up the track right at the end of the contact to be sure HE wasn't the one to spin out!
One last example, from an earlier race, of this amazing change in Jeff: near the end of the 1999 Daytona 500 when "Wolfman Gordon" made the wild pass on Rusty Wallace down low on the back straight that scared the hell out of both Rusty and poor Ricky Rudd who was just trying to put in a few slow laps to gain points. Jeff got beside Rusty on the inside and Rusty forced him clear down onto the apron. They were coming up on both the turn and straight for a very slow Ricky Rudd. Jeff never lifted. He said afterwards that he wouldn't have either, but disaster was averted by Rusty moving up the track and allowing Jeff to complete the pass and go on to win the race. As I said no one gets to see this Gordon, we only get to see his actions and clearly, if you watch closely, they will speak much louder than words. Why do you think he takes so long to get into victory lane on some races? It's so he gets back to looking normal and no one will see that side of Jeff Gordon, especially not on national TV!
One of the features of this Wolfman Gordon's driving style near the end of a race, especially if he has gotten into the lead, is he will takes chances he wouldn't have taken earlier in the race. This frequently offers examples of his incredible driving skills. In the 1994 Brickyard race I think Jeff was one of, if not the very first, WC driver to hold the outside line through a corner and end up in to the lead when he was racing Ernie Irvin near the end of the race. The announcers had been saying all race long that it couldn't be done. Another example of this skill could be seen in this year's Brickyard 400 after Wolfman Gordon had gotten around Sterling Marlin on a restart to take the lead of the race. If you watch the replay, you can see that Jeff is coming within an inch or two of the wall virtually every lap when he comes out of turns 2 and 4. Clearly he is simply driving the wheels off the car. By contrast, Sterling, whom I believe had a slightly superior car, is a good two or three feet off the wall each time behind Jeff. This is not a calm, cool and collected Jeff Gordon; he doesn't care about anything but winning the race at this point. He doesn't care about the season, the car or anything---just winning! And that is one of the big reasons he does--win races and Championships, that is!
The author can be contacted nascar@autoracing1.com
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