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Welcome, race fans! I'm Brenda Luttrell. I'm 41, I live just outside
Indianapolis, and I drive a school bus, so I know a thing or two about
left turns. I've been pulling for Jeff Gordon since his rookie year in
1993, when my husband Gary laughed at me for liking "the kid."
Gary is a Dale Earnhardt man. We have lived in a house divided for six years now. He has a black 3 flag on the garage. I have a rainbow 24 flag on the porch. The neighbors think it's hilarious. We get along fine fifty weeks a year, and then there's Daytona and the Brickyard. |
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1998: THE SEASON If you're new here, 1998 was the year. Jeff won 13 races, which tied Richard Petty's modern-era record for wins in a season. He won four in a row in the middle of the summer, with the Brickyard 400 right in the middle of the streak. He won the championship, his third, and he was only 27 years old. Ray Evernham is his crew chief, and the pit crew is the Rainbow Warriors, named for the rainbow on the DuPont car. Those boys changed tires faster than anybody on pit road, and I really believe half those wins were won in the pits. |
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I WAS THERE: THE 1998 BRICKYARD 400 My sister got us tickets for Saturday, August 1, 1998, way down in turn one. Hot? You bet. My legs got sunburned right through my pantyhose. (I was going to church after. Don't ask.) When Jeff took the checkered flag, I screamed so loud a man from Kentucky two rows down turned around and bought me a lemonade. That win came with a million-dollar bonus on top, and you could feel the whole Speedway shake. (He won the very first Brickyard back in 1994, too.) I have the ticket stub, a program and a 24 hat that says 1998 Brickyard on it. I would put a picture up but my film is still sitting at the drugstore. For a year. I should go get that. |
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1999 SO FAR He opened the year by winning the Daytona 500 for the second time, in February, and held off Dale Earnhardt himself to the line. (Gary went and sat in the truck.) He's won at Sears Point and Watkins Glen again too, so nobody can tell me he can't turn right. Dale Jarrett has a big lead in the points this year and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. I don't care. There is always next year. |
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WHY JEFF? People boo him. I know. They call him Wonder Boy and say he's too young and too clean-cut and has too much money behind him. Here's what I see: a young man who works harder than anybody, who is polite to every fan who comes up to him, who thanks his crew every single time, and who can drive anything with wheels on it. He was racing quarter midgets when he was five. His family moved here to Indiana when he was a teenager so he could race sprint cars, because you had to be older to do it back in California. My brother-in-law swears he saw him race on a dirt track down south of here and that nobody could touch him. And he married a nice girl, Brooke, and they seem very happy, and that counts for something with me. |
| JEFF GORDON AT A GLANCE | |
| Born | August 4, 1971, Vallejo, California |
| Grew up racing | California, then Indiana |
| Car | #24 DuPont Chevrolet Monte Carlo |
| Car owner | Rick Hendrick |
| Crew chief | Ray Evernham |
| Rookie of the Year | 1993 |
| First Cup win | Coca-Cola 600, 1994 |
| Winston Cup titles | 1995, 1997, 1998 |
| Daytona 500 | 1997, 1999 |
| Brickyard 400 | 1994, 1998 |
| Also | Won the Winston Million in 1997 |
