Editor’s note: Lauren Downey of NASCAR Productions grew up idolizing Jeff Gordon. In this special guest column, she reveals how her favorite driver was so much more than just that.
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This week has been hard. Really hard. I’m having a difficult time accepting that Jeff Gordon – my guy growing up – will be done after Sunday’s race.
I’m not an overly emotional person, though, so that made me think: Why is this affecting me so much? I wasn’t this down about any other favorite athlete retiring. Hell, I wasn’t even this down when my beloved Cubbies got swept by the Mets this postseason.
To be sure, part of it is knowing that one of the greatest eras of NASCAR is coming to an end. In my opinion, the late 90’s and 2000’s were some of NASCAR’s finest years. Now those guys like Jarrett, Labonte, Wallace and Martin are all done. Maybe it’s taking this first big retirement of my era to face the fact that the NASCAR I grew up with is soon to be no more.
Still, most of the emotion has to do with Jeff Gordon and what he meant to my life.
I know I’m one of millions who can say they’ll lose a little piece of themselves when the roar of the engines dies down and the corks come flying off the oversized champagne bottles on Sunday night.
But not as many will be saying goodbye to a guy who changed the course of their lives. I’m one of those people, too.
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I was 5 when I saw my first stock car. I had no clue what I was looking at, but I knew it was bright orange, flashy and did not look like my Mom’s Honda CR-V. It was Ricky Rudd’s No. 10 Tide Ford Thunderbird in the parking lot of Food Town (RIP) in Toledo, Ohio.
That happened to be on the morning of the 1997 Daytona 500. It was a show car there to promote Tide, but as it turned out, it did far more than promote a product. It launched my fandom and mapped out my Sundays for the next 18 years.
I tuned in for my first Daytona 500 later that day because of that show car and was mesmerized. I quickly became attracted to the other flashy car in the race – the rainbow-colored one that happened to win.
Since I was 5 at the time, I had no clue who Jeff Gordon was, who Ray Evernham was or what impact the Rainbow Warriors already had on the sport. But the next weekend, I watched again, and then again and again.
Years went by and I never stopped watching. Jeff kept winning, and the next thing I knew, I was in all 24 gear practically every day of the week. I remember going to school wearing the brightest 24 shirt under my starch white Catholic school polo so everyone knew who I rooted for.
In math class, I would doodle racecars. Art class was centered whether I could draw the block “24” correctly and if I had the right shade of yellow to fill it in.
As I got older, the Gordon T-shirts, books, posters, bicycle helmets, Hot Wheels and math folders all filled my bedroom. I had found my niche.
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Jeff Gordon was the guy who sparked the interest in NASCAR for me. So many fans loved Earnhardt because he was the blue-collar guy you could relate to, and reliability seems to be the root of what makes someone become a fan.
Jeff was not only someone I idolized, and he’s more than just being a favorite athlete of mine. He is responsible for the career I have chosen.
I could have gone to work in TV anywhere, but I dreamed of being in NASCAR. In June 2014, I left a fantastic job in Indianapolis and moved to Charlotte for no other reason than to work for NASCAR Productions.
I’ve been at NASCAR Productions for the last year and a half now, and it’s been a true team. I’ve had more opportunities than I imagined. I’ve been able to work on documentaries like “I Am Dale,” “100,000 Cameras,” “Perfect Storm” and “The Kiss.” At times, I get to coordinate our shooters at the track (that’s my favorite part of the job). I love working with our outstanding crew to bring stories of the weekend into the living rooms of fans.
And my career path can all be traced back to Gordon. I had revolved my college education around my NASCAR talk radio show (which meant practically nothing to anyone but me). Think about that: I based my classes on the path that would get me working in NASCAR because some guy in a rainbow car caught my eye when I was so young enough that I barely had memory to sustain.
He was that transcendent in a sport that wasn’t any longer just the good ol’ boys from Hickory or North Wilkesboro. He looked like someone I would see in my hometown, he talked like my Dad did and he flat out whipped people on the racetrack (which didn’t hurt).
Jeff truly was the reason a 5-year-old girl from Northwest Ohio even cared about stock car racing. It might’ve been because he won that ’97 Daytona 500, it might’ve been that rainbow color paint scheme, but one thing is for sure – he’s responsible for much more than 97 wins and four (or maybe five) championships.
So as the day of his final career race arrives, it feels like a monumental portion of my life is ending.
As I think back about all he’s meant to me, this is what I want to say the most: Thank you, Jeff.
