At the tender age of 29, Jeff Gordon has already won three Winston Cup championships, and his 53 checkers ties him with Rusty Wallace for the most victories among active drivers.
And after a two year “slump” – one that saw the DuPont Chevrolet pilot finish sixth in the final standings in 1999 and ninth last year – Gordon is, once again, at the top of the heap and driving with the same passion and intensity that earned him the nickname “Wonder Boy.”
“It’s been since 1999 since I was at the top of the standings, so it feels good,” Gordon says. “But I also realize this is going to be one of those years where the leaders change quite a bit. I think you’ve already seen how competitive things have been in 2001.”
After the year began on a sad note with Dale Earnhardt’s death in the Daytona 500, things are slowly returning to normal in NASCAR’s premiere league. Gordon has a victory at Las Vegas, second-place finishes at Atlanta and Fontana, Calif., and a third-place spot at Rockingham. He is a strong second in the points standings.
The California native has been a force ever since a 30th-place finish in Florida and is poised to break the tie with Wallace and challenge for his fourth series crown.
“Things are going real well for us,” Gordon says. “Each week that we run, we build confidence, but we still realize we’re only [five] races into the season. What we have to do is maintain consistency, and if we can do that, there’s no doubt we can challenge for the championship at the end of the year.”
Gordon was one of the most highly touted rookies to enter Winston Cup competition, and in his first full season (1993), the youngster managed two second-place showings and finished a respectable 14th in the points standings. Two years later, Gordon would win the first of his three series crowns, and between 1996 and 1998, he would grab a staggering 33 checkers.
