He’ll have five time Brickyard 400 victor Jeff Gordon as a teammate and coach this year as Gordon fills in for Dale Earnhardt Jr. and that pay off in big dividends on Sunday.
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Gordon ranks third among all drivers with a 106.8 Driver Rating over the past five starts at Indy, according to NASCAR’s Loop Data, leading 88 laps, which is ironic due to the number on his vehicle this weekend. After another medical evaluation Tuesday in Pittsburgh, doctors told Earnhardt to take more time off.
“Our focus is giving Dale all the time he needs to recover”.
“I questioned Mr. H several times when he was asking me on the phone about this”, Gordon said.
Brad Keselowski’s team has been the best Ford team in 2016, but the manufacturer has not been out front when it counted here since 1999.
“We just want him to be there when he is ready and when the doctors say he is ready”. Of course, the tragedy of two years ago at a sprint vehicle race in NY that Stewart was involved with left some fans questioning Stewart’s values. A neurological specialist later confirmed Earnhardt had sustained a head injury. “I made the decision I had to make”.
I wouldn’t put long odds against Gordon.
The move comes at a time that Hendrick’s powerhouse team has been out of sync. When the Sprint Cup series raced at the Brickyard past year, it was with an experimental high-drag package with a large spoiler, a configuration that was not incorporated into the 2016 rules. Ever since returning after missing the first eight races with a broken back, it’s largely been business as usual with minimal indication Stewart is done racing full-time NASCAR at the end of the year.
Gordon said he had been vacationing in France yet planned to attend the race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway – plans were for him to drive the pace vehicle – before owner Rick Hendrick approached him about filling in for Earnhardt. And while Earnhardt is now penciled in for a spot, the fact he missed the last race, and Gordon is driving the next two, means his position could be a vacancy soon. I was more than just a fan from then on, he would be “my guy” along with Jeff Gordon for the rest of time. HMS had kept the equipment from what was supposed to be Gordon’s final Cup Series start, not realizing it’d be needed again.
After landing in Charlotte, Gordon was whisked to team headquarters for a seat fitting. “Jimmie Johnson has offered me his cool vest, so they know that I’m old and not in the shape that I was”.
Jeff Gordon was thought to have won his final Brickyard 400 in 2014. Dale’s got a great team.
One of the interesting notes of the press conference was when Gordon mentioned that he was approached to drive in the Daytona 500 for Tony Stewart and the No. 14 team.
“That process itself was really interesting and exciting and fun and gotten me pretty fired up to get in the auto and feel what it’s like to be in there”, Gordon said. “I feel like we had a really good tire test here, felt like our auto drove really well”.
Not having Earnhardt in Sunday’s starting lineup also will be odd.
The start of the 2015 Crown Royal Presents The Jeff Kyle 400 at The Brickyard.
But even without one of NASCAR’s top drivers, IN fans will have two storied drivers to watch – Gordon’s comeback and what is supposed to be Tony Stewart’s grand finale on his home track.
Yet another story is local legend Tony Stewart, making his last run at The Brickyard as he is retiring at the end of this season.
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On Friday Jeff Gordon sat down with Rick Hendrick ahead of NASCAR’s Brickyard 400 to discuss his return to racing, Dale Jr., and a lot more. However, the Brickyard 400 isn’t the stock-car spectacle it used to be, requiring unique narratives like the ones surrounding Stewart and Gordon to generate buzz.
