Jeff Gordon starts Sunday’s Sprint Cup Kobalt Tools 500 in suburban Atlanta with the points lead despite finishing sixth at last week’s auto race in Las Vegas.
The four-time Cup Series champion also finished 13th at the season-opening Daytona 500 and second at the Auto Club 500 in Fontana, Calif.
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Now that he has returned to familiar territory atop the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings, Jeff Gordon is looking to get back to another place he once visited on a regular basis—victory lane.
“It’s been a great start to the season and I’m really proud of this team,” Gordon said after a sixth-place finish last week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway gave him the points lead for the first time in 17 months. “We’re just bringing awesome race cars to the racetrack.
“Three weeks in a row I’ve felt like we have the car that can win, and that’s quite a change from last year.”
Having Gordon atop the points standings gives fans something to cheer - or boo - about.
They have something to care about.
Gordon has always been booed as much as cheered during driver introductions.
Sure, Dale Earnhardt Jr. hands down wins the Most Popular Driver Awards, and sells a boat-load of T-shirts and hats. Yet, so far, he hasn’t proven he can dominate the sport on the track the way Gordon once did.
Jimmie Johnson has won three titles in a row, but he’s never inspired the emotion in fans - good and bad - that Gordon has for virtually every step of his career.
Kyle Busch won 10 races last year. He hasn’t come close to being the draw that Gordon was when he ran the field.
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Gordon winning, or at the very least leading the points, can do more to boost the visibility of the sport than those three combined.
Gordon is a different man now than he was when he was unstoppable. He’s a husband and a father.
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