'The Kid' turns 27 on Tuesday

INDIANAPOLIS -- Maybe it's time to stop calling Jeff Gordon "The Kid."

On Saturday, the NASCAR Winston Cup star became the first two-time winner of the Brickyard 400, remained on pace for a third series championship and moved past Bill Elliott into second place in career winnings.

"Wow. I think that's all you can say to that. That's incredible. Indianapolis is already such a special race and a huge purse," Gordon said of the racing record prize of $1,637,625 he collected.

Included was a $1 million bonus from the series sponsor.

Gordon earned the moniker "The Kid" for his quick rise to racing stardom in the early '90s. Although he turns 27 Tuesday, he already has dominated his sport the way few drivers have.

With eight top-three finishes, including four victories, in his last nine starts, Gordon leads Brickyard runner-up Mark Martin by 72 points and Dale Jarrett by 193 in the Winston Cup title chase.

And with $20,297,547 in prize money, he trails only the career-record $32,401,950 of seven-time series champion Dale Earnhardt.

"It seems like when they put the big money up, this team just steps up to the plate," Gordon said. "It's not just the money. It's a whole lot more. It's the prestige of what the money does to the race."

Gordon is accustomed to Hoosier Hospitality.

He grew up in Pittsboro, a 15-minute drive from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, honing his driving skills on the short tracks of the Midwest before heading south to NASCAR.

He returned home in 1994, and won the first Brickyard 400. His victory Saturday was loudly cheered by most of the 320,000 fans who packed the mammoth track.

"I'm really overwhelmed," he said. "I love coming here. It holds so much prestige. ... With winning this race, and with what's going on with my team, my life just keeps getting better.

"It's an awesome thing to hear, especially when we go other places," Gordon said, alluding to the boos he generally receives on the circuit. "The other day, when I got out of the car after qualifying (third), you would have thought I won the pole. It's nice to hear."

This week, he and the rest of the Winston Cup drivers head to the road course at Watkins Glen, N.Y., where he is the defending champion.

"Those guys are doing everything right, right now," said Martin, whose chance to catch Gordon on Saturday was cut short by a multicar crash near the rear of the field three laps from the end. That forced the event to end under a yellow flag.

"We're losing 10 points a race," Martin said. "That's the best we can do.

"He's won the race and led the most laps the last two races. They're just on a roll. They've got us beat in a couple of areas and we're doing all we can do to figure it out and catch them."

Jarrett lost four laps in the middle of the race because his team miscalculated and he ran out of gas. That he made up all four lost laps showed how strong his car was. But time ran out on Jarrett, who finished 16th and lost ground in the points.

"You can't afford to make mistakes like that because those guys take advantage of it every time," Jarrett said of Gordon's team. "As close as our racing is these days, any mistake is damaging.

"But we've still got 14 races left, and a lot can happen to any team out there."

archive