Q. I hear what you’re saying. I just think that you always had the championships over Jimmie. And even though you had the wins and had the greater success lately, you were still, I think, a lot of people still looked upon you as, like you said, in some ways the Alpha male or one of the states men of it. And I just wonder now that he’s tying you, that takes away a position of power or perceived power?
JEFF GORDON: I mean, it depends on what type of power position you’re talking about. From an equity partnership in Hendrick, I still have that. And the experience that I have in the sport in my position in the sport as well as Hendrick Motorsports, I don’t feel like that’s going to take away from that.
And there’s going to be a day that Jimmie stays long enough at Hendrick, that’s going to get turned over to him as well, you know. I think that’s sort of how he’s positioned himself. He’s smart.
Listen, if my ego was a problem, I would have never hired the guy and gave everything that I had to give. I wouldn’t do that with my other teammates. You know, to me I look at how can we make our organization better? I’ve accomplished more than I’ve ever dreamed of and I want to keep doing that, but I also know that if you put the right people in place they’re going to have a lot of success.
We did that with the 48 team and look at what they’ve done. We’ve got to recreate that with the 24 team, and we made big strides from last season to this season. But that’s, you know, the bar that is set. I think that’s great for our organization because it makes the other three work that much harder to try to strive for that, you know.
So I don’t allow my ego to get in the way of where I sit. In my opinion I’ve always been underneath Richard Petty and, you know, Dale Earnhardt in championships and Pierson and so many others as far as wins go, that I’ve never looked at that as a competition. I want to keep winning races, and I want to get as high up the list as I possibly can before I no longer am driving full-time.
Wherever I end up, even if it stops today at 81 or 82 (wins), I’m still pretty darn proud of that.
Q. You’re able to capitalize on your success with advertising deals and TV things. Has Jimmie not been able to do that as much do you think?
JEFF GORDON: I mean, right now the economy is definitely playing a role. But I feel like they’re working at it. It took a long time for those deals to really materialize for me. I had some of the best opportunities marketing-wise that I’ve ever had after I won my fourth championship.
Actually, not necessarily this year, but the last four or five years, you know, the Tag Heuer deal and the Georgia pacific and some really, really good marketing opportunities. Not to mention our position with our sponsors like DuPont and Pepsi.
I think the longer you stay in the sport, the more consistent you stay, especially towards the top. The more respect you get, and the more you build your brand up to have those opportunities there that might not always—you want to capitalize on it while you’re winning your championships, but that’s not always the way it works.
Q. Is it different in NASCAR than other sports like LeBron comes out high school and has the Nike deals or Tiger Woods with American Express right from the start. Is it different? That’s why you have to build that?
JEFF GORDON: It is a lot different. But there could be a young guy that comes along that just has so much marketability as well as talent that it might change all that. It could change all that next season if that person came along.
But it does seem like it’s a lot different in our sport than in others. Especially the ball and stick sports because you have kids playing those sports in school. They want to wear those shoes, and they want to use that mitt or that bat or whatever type of equipment that those guys use. We don’t have that.
I mean, you don’t have kids walking around going I want to wear that Alpine Star racing suit, you know? Unless you’re a race car driver (laughter).
Q. During the race are you going to be asking for updates on the 48 and 5 or are you just going to focus on what you’re doing?
JEFF GORDON: I didn’t even know he wrecked last week to be honest. I knew there was a wreck. I didn’t know he wrecked and they didn’t say a word to me. I like it that way.
I prefer not to know because it really doesn’t change how—it could change if I know too much of how we focused on the race. I want my focus to be on driving the race car. Getting in and out of pit stalls, you know, and our whole team really are focused on doing our job. Not being distracted by what the other guys are doing.
Q. Looking ahead to next week, is it a big confidence builder for a team or driver to be able to go bragging being the last winner? Is it nice to win the last race and carry that through?
JEFF GORDON: Definitely. I think it gives you momentum over the off-season to, you know, what you’re working on. It gives you confidence. It gives you bragging rights. It’s just a great feeling to end the season right whether it’s the last race that you win or one of the last couple of races that you win.
Those are no different than the pole last week at Texas. That was big for us to get that pole. But a win, you know, is huge, especially at Homestead, because it is the final race. It would be huge for us. We’ve never won there before. I think that everybody feels that way.
Q. just curious. Does it matter or factor in how the Chase format came into play? That Jimmie has his titles under that format?
JEFF GORDON: No, there’s no doubt that’s changed the history of our sport. I’ve said all along ever since the Chase came along that the championship, you know and how it’s looked at and how many numbers people have, you can’t compare.
I think Richard had some championships under a different format. I just don’t think you can compare the two in any way. They’re really totally different. But I still think the best team still wins.
While we might have had a couple of extra championships under the old format if they still existed, you know, that’s the truth of the matter is it doesn’t matter.
We’ve got the new format, and I like the new format. I think it’s exciting. I think it’s challenging. So I think there are more positives than negatives. But you can’t compare what anybody wanted to be in the old format to anybody that’s won it in the new format.
Q. Do you feel like Jimmie’s going to have trouble for mark to catch him or are you guys close enough to where they could have just a bad enough race and you guys have a good enough race to make it?
JEFF GORDON: Those guys don’t give up 80 points, talking about Mark. They don’t give those points up easily. But 80 over two races are doable. 112, I think, not necessarily without them having trouble.
But mark making up 40-plus points per race is not completely out of the question. But those guys run too good to just finish there. It would have to be, you know, it came down to a fuel mileage race and they didn’t have the fuel mileage, or it would have to come down to a really bad pit stop or come down to them actually having trouble in my opinion.
| 
|