Tuesday, January 28, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Gordon still motoring despite bends in road

By JEFF WOLF
REVIEW-JOURNAL

Jeff Gordon NASCAR driver testing at Las Vegas Motor Speedway this week

On television, Jeff Gordon doesn't look like he's aged since he became the youngest driver at 24 to win the Winston Cup Series championship in 1995.

He doesn't look much older from a few feet away either, other than a few gray hairs that have slipped into his sideburns and a smattering of gray stubble in the early growth of a beard.

"I'm feeling good and having fun," Gordon said during a break in testing Monday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where he and 13 other Cup and five Busch series drivers were preparing for the 2003 season.

His good looks helped carry NASCAR to Madison Avenue, but that hasn't prevented him from winning 61 Winston Cup races, including the 2001 UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 in Las Vegas.

At 31, NASCAR's one-time golden boy has become one of the series' elder statesmen as a youth movement has made thirtysomething drivers somewhat of an endangered species. However, along with Gordon's success has come some disappointment as well.

In 2001, Gordon was forced to carry the banner of stock-car racing after Dale Earnhardt was killed in the season-opening Daytona 500 since no one else in the series had Gordon's crossover appeal.

Although Gordon won three Cup races in 2002 and finished fourth in the standings, it wasn't a good year by his standards.

The low point came away from the track when Gordon's wife of seven years, Brooke, filed for divorce in March. They were the highest-profile couple in NASCAR and even appeared in TV commercials together.

"I'll admit life is a little bit different these days," he said. "I never used to worry about if I was going to be in the National Enquirer or worry about my personal, financial things (being in the papers)."

Although Jeff Gordon's attorneys had requested all financial records be kept confidential, Brooke Gordon's lawyers won and it became public record that he was worth about $48 million and earned more than $18 million in 2001.

"That's a part of the choices that were made, and it's out of my hands," he said. "It's in the lawyers' hands. I'm getting through it the best way I can and living my life."

Last week, it became known that her lawyers had subpoenaed financial records -- including those detailing driver and sponsor contracts -- from other teams in the Cup series.

"It bothered the heck out of me that that's being done because I don't understand it," he said. "That's what they've chosen to do and take that path."

But the new year hasn't been all bad.

On Jan. 11, he became the first racing personality to be the host of NBC's "Saturday Night Live."

"Great opportunities have been coming along for me," he said. "Racing's good, the team's great, so I have no complaints."

• NOTES -- Reigning Winston Cup champion Tony Stewart will join the lineup today for the second of four testing days.

Testing is from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day with free admission to the speedway's grandstands.

For this week's complete schedule of NASCAR testing at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, see Scoreboard, Page 4C.