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How Jeff Gordon became the face of NASCAR

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – A year after Jeff Gordon won the inaugural Brickyard 400, NASCAR's first foray at the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Dale Earnhardt Sr. was making the talk show rounds celebrating his own victory there in 1995.

Sitting on Jay Leno's couch, Earnhardt, as only he could, explained that while "Wonder Boy" won it first, he was the first "man" to win the Brickyard.

And so it was for Gordon who'd infiltrated a world that, to that point, hadn't really had to deal with anyone like him. Which is to say, a kid from California who dared to not only to show up, but win too.

Earnhardt didn't mind tweaking him, while fans loved to boo him – a lot.

It's a starting point that makes the ending such a remarkable story.

Twenty years later, as Gordon preps for the final Daytona 500 (where he'll start on the pole) in the final season of a brilliant career, he is unquestionably the face of the sport. Those boos, mostly gone, have been replaced by respect.

Jeff Gordon leaves having won them over.

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Jeff Gordon is hugged by a fan on his way to a practice session last season.
Jeff Gordon is hugged by a fan on his way to a practice session last season.

There's a story Ray Evernham likes to tell, Gordon's stepfather John Bickford explains. It happened back in the mid-90s at Bristol.

He's leading the race but complaining over the radio about his car. It won't do this and it won't do that and he might have broken a finger. At some point Evernham chimes in and says, "You see that car in the mirror, that's Earnhardt. He's got no fenders and he's gonna pass you."

"Jeff picked up almost 3-tenths of a second," Bickford says, "and won the race."

That's the kind of motivation the rivalry with Earnhardt provided.

In Gordon, Earnhardt found someone he couldn't intimidate. And as the kid's wins started piling up – two in '94, seven in '95, 10 in '96 – Earnhardt Nation responded in not-so-kind.

"It was interesting because I felt like I was doing everything right. I mean, I might not have always said the right things, but I think on the track I was for the most part doing the right things to earn the respect to get the cheers and get the backing," Gordon said this week inside his hauler at Daytona International Speedway. "It took me a little while to understand, no matter what I did, as long as I was going up against Earnhardt, I was always sort of going to be the bad guy."

And he was, because every race he won was a race Earnhardt didn't, and that was tough for the diehards to swallow, especially when their guy was still in heavy pursuit of an eighth championship, which would have put him one ahead of the legend, Richard Petty.

"We were building a fan base, which was good, but it was nowhere near the size of what Dale's was, so they were very outspoken about it," Gordon says.

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Daytona 500 winnings through the years (AP)
Daytona 500 winnings through the years (AP)

The rivalry was good for business.

In 1997, when Gordon won his first Daytona 500, the winning purse was $377,410. When Earnhardt won it in '98, it was $1,059,085.

By 1999, NASCAR had signed a television agreement with Fox and NBC valued at $2.4 billion, a deal that Gordon unknowingly instigated.

In search of sports programming, then Fox Sports chairman David Hill was watching a NASCAR race being run on the road course at Sonoma (Calif.) when the No. 24 car caught his eye.

"I thought this was just going to be a shame, watching these NASCAR cars on a road course," Hill told Yahoo Sports' Jay Busbee. "But as I watched, I could see how Gordon was approaching this same turn, over and over again, the way he set himself up, the way he moved the back of the car, and I thought, 'This guy can drive.' He came closer and closer and closer, and I realized I was totally wrong about NASCAR."

Hill met with then NASCAR president Bill France Jr., told him he wanted to package a portion of the season on Fox, and soon thereafter NASCAR had its first major television deal.

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It's New York City, September 2009. Gordon is eating a quick breakfast at an Au Bon Pain. A man in a suit approaches and asks for an autograph. It's for his friend Brian. "He's a huge fan."

No problem says Gordon, grabbing the man's piece of paper. "Does he spell it B-R-I or B-R-Y?"

Moments later, a cashier approaches, asking for a photo for her manager. Sure. She holds up the camera, points it at Gordon and …

"Hold on a second," Gordon interrupts. "Doesn't he want to be in the picture?"

It's Texas Motor Speedway and Gordon is posing for a picture with a young fan, who's not really cooperating. Snap, snap, snap, but the kid still hasn't looked at the camera.

Thanks Jeff, know you gotta go.

He does, but he doesn't. He wants to make sure the picture is right, so he stays until the kid cooperates.

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Jeff Gordon was always "the kid."

When he started racing at 5 he was the youngest kid in quarter midgets. When he moved up to sprint cars, he was so much younger then everyone else that they started calling him "the kid."

Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt before a NASCAR Cup race in 1996. (Getty Images)
Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt before a NASCAR Cup race in 1996. (Getty Images)

So when Earnhardt referred to him as "Wonder Boy" on national TV, it didn't bother him too much. "I was just used to being the kid and being looked on as the kid," Gordon says.

The feeling of being the kid, he says, didn't end until he won his third Cup championship … when he was 26.

"I'm still a kid now, but I'm not viewed upon as a kid."

He's 43 now, a bit young to be retiring, but when he looks around at the guys he came in with – Bobby Labonte, Jeff Burton, Kenny Wallace – and sees that they're mostly gone, he knows it's time.

"When I got into the sport and Earnhardt was in his 40s and other guys were going into their 50s, I always thought, 'That's not me,' " he explained. "To me, it's not what age you are, it's how long you were in the sport, and I always felt 20 years was a heck of a career, and probably a good time to step away."

As he does, it's fair to wonder how the sport will handle it. There are only a handful of drivers who move the NASCAR needle, and of those only two who are truly transformational. But while Dale Earnhardt Jr. has done an admirable job taking the baton from his father, it's Gordon, ironically, who represents the last direct link to NASCAR's roots.

He's the only one on the track regularly anymore who actually raced against Richard Petty, albeit once, the only one who can claim to have stood up to and beaten Dale Earnhardt Sr.

"I wasn't around to watch the King [Richard Petty] step down and some of the other greats that have been in our sport, so I don't know exactly how it's going to go," Jimmie Johnson said. "Our sport is not going to necessarily suffer from it, but it's just not the same. It's Jeff Gordon."

Those two words didn't used to mean much around these parts. Sunday, during driver introductions, we'll see just how much they do now after 23 years.

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