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Is Martinsville Jeff Gordon's last Cup race? Probably, but 'never say never'
Jeff Gordon isn’t making a firm commitment that Sunday’s race at Martinsville is his last Sprint Cup Series race.
The defending Martinsville champion came out of retirement to fill in for Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Hendrick Motorsports. Gordon has driven seven races in 2016 for Junior and Sunday is set to be his eighth and final race in the No. 88.
“Your guess is as good as mine, Gordon said with a laugh when he was asked if Sunday was his last race. “I can promise you I had no intentions of this happening, but here I am. Never say never is all I know what to say. I really don’t think that I will be getting back in the Cup car again, but go ask [team owner] Rick Hendrick. That really has more to do with him than anything else.
“I hope in the future that the drivers don’t have a situation like what we had with Junior where they need somebody to fill in for them … If I had to do it, then certainly I would, but I don’t anticipate it.”
Gordon’s teammate Jimmie Johnson wasn’t so sure Sunday would be Gordon’s final Cup start.
“He is one heck of a sub to have sitting on the bench when you need it,” Johnson said. “We will see. I’m not sure he is ready to completely stop. I think he was ready to get off the merry-go-round of 39 races a year, but the full stop I don’t think he is ready for.”
If Gordon is done in the Cup Series, he’ll finish his career with 93 wins in 805 starts and four Sprint Cup titles.
Gordon’s win at Martinsville last fall — the likely final win of his career — put him in the final round of the Chase and gave him a shot to win a fifth championship in what many thought would be his last Cup race. Gordon ended up third of the four drivers competing for the title and moved into a broadcasting role with Fox Sports for the 2016 season.
He was able to fill in for Junior because Fox’s NASCAR contract was up for the season and has finished in the top 10 just once. His first race with the team was at Indianapolis and said the experience with the team will help him as a broadcaster in 2017.
“Honestly, Indianapolis didn’t end well for me last year,” Gordon said about a crash that took him out of the 2015 Brickyard 400. “I didn’t hesitate one bit, but it was a tall challenge when I got there it was really tough. Things didn’t go as well as any of us had hoped. I didn’t plan on going to Pocono and some of the other tracks, but at the same time I realized that jumping back in it I needed more laps and needed more experience if I was going to give them a better result. So, I was kind of happy to do more, sad about the situation, but if they needed me I wanted to do a little bit more to get more comfortable with the team and the cars. I wanted to drive the cars with less downforce this year and see what it was like; does me a lot of good when I get back in the Fox booth to kind of connect those dots and was a great experience.”
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
