Friday, July 18, 2014

Jeff Gordon Talking 20th Anniversary
of Inaugural Brickyard 400 Win


Next week the NASCAR Sprint Cup series is heading to Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Jeff Gordon will be there celebrating the 20th anniversary of his win in the inaugural Brickyard race.

Jeff Gordon is the driver of the No. 24 Axalta Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. He has one win and currently leads the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points standings.

However, twenty years ago, Jeff was just a youngster. Yet he scored a victory at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the inaugural Brickyard 400, by passing Ernie Irvan for the lead late in the race when Irvan cut down a tire. Gordon won his second Brickyard in 1998 and his third one in 2001!

“Every time it’s something special when you go to Indianapolis. It’s just such a cool place, so much history, and obviously a lot of great memories for me and confidence.” Gordon articulated about going back to Indianapolis twenty years after winning the inaugural Brickyard 400. “As a driver when I go there, of course it takes a great car and a great team to win that race, but it seems like most years that we’ve been there, we’ve had a car that’s capable of winning. With the type of season that we’re having, I’m extremely excited about going to Indianapolis. I think that the way that our cars are performing, the way our engines are performing, Indianapolis is a track that we certainly can win at.

Jeff Gordon has already clinched a top 30 spot, but with a single win has yet to clinch the "wins" portion of the Chase criteria. A win at Indy would clinch him a spot. To clinch a top 30 spot, the clinching driver must be 289 points ahead of 31st place after Indianapolis.

Trivia fact: The night after winning the first-ever Brickyard 400 in Indianapolis in 1994, Jeff Gordon called a pizza delivery place from his hotel room and was told it would be an hour or two before he got his food because of the race.  His reply to the pizza delivery worker was, "Well, will it help any if I'm the *winner* of that race?" He got his delivery within minutes. 


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