On NASCAR: A Longer Wish List
By Cathy Elliott
Do you know what I'd really like to see?
I'd really like to see Jeff Gordon win a race. Soon.
This is the time to state for the record that although Jeff Gordon is not the driver I routinely root for on Sunday afternoon, I am definitely one of his most loyal fans. Every week now I find myself hoping that at the end of the day, I'll see him in Victory Lane.
I got interested in stock car racing at about the same time Jeff Gordon began competing in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. It wasn't Gordon himself that piqued my interest as much as it was the reaction he elicited from long-time fans of the sport. Now a beloved NASCAR icon, in the early days Gordon was the recipient of enough boos and hisses to make Kyle Busch run for cover.
Gordon's crime? Not the fact that he was winning, but who he was beating -- the legendary Dale Earnhardt, Sr. The two drivers were friendly with one another, and Gordon has said "The Intimidator" gave him a lot of good advice during his rookie days, but fans wanted to stir up a rivalry nevertheless.
Attend a pre-race drivers' meeting, close your eyes and point your finger, and the guy on the other end of it will look poised and ready for a GQ cover shoot. It doesn’t matter which driver it is. The NASCAR superstars of today are well coiffed and cosmopolitan. They own wineries. They not only wear cologne, but actually have their names on the bottles. They're slick.
That isn't a bad thing, but it is kind of new thing. A couple of decades ago, drivers were more likely to kick back with a beer than a Beaujolais, and to smell more like motor oil than patchouli oil.
This young and handsome, poised and polished Gordon guy wasn't just threatening to excel at a sport. He was threatening to change it. Although he hasn't won a championship in a while, in my humble opinion, Jeff Gordon is the face of contemporary NASCAR, and has played a huge role in helping elevate the sport to its current level of popularity.
Gordon's resume is pretty well known by now, although space prohibits doing proper justice to it here. Four-time Cup Series champion. Three-time Daytona 500 winner. Four-time winner at The Brickyard. Named one of NASCAR's 50 greatest drivers. Cup Series Rookie of the Year. Sixth overall in Cup Series career wins.
The list goes on ... or it might be more appropriate to say the LISTS go on. Jeff Gordon is on an awful lot of lists.
But what's been nagging at me recently is not the many lists Gordon is on, but the one he isn't: the list of 2010 race winners.
Lists are as much a part of sports as hot dogs. Fans love stats and numbers. We like to watch them rise and fall and change. When someone makes it to the top -– the most hits, the most points, the most race wins – our attention shifts to the bottom. Can someone down there hit or score or drive their way to the top? We watch and wonder, make our predictions and chew our nails. It’s fun.
Some say the only good list is a short list, and when referring to things like chores to be done or bills to be paid, that's true. But one current list is far too short for my personal taste. The list of 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race winners, following the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway, has just seven names on it -- Jimmie Johnson, Denny Hamlin, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Jamie McMurray, Kevin Harvick and Ryan Newman.
If you're a fan of one of these guys, you're most likely OK with this list. But if you're a fan of Tony Stewart, or Kasey Kahne, or Carl Edwards, or Dale Earnhardt, Jr. ... not so much.
Sports dominance and the building of athletic dynasties is a fun process to watch -- Jimmie Johnson and the No. 48 team have offered a pitch perfect example of that over the past few years -- but enough is enough. Just because you enjoy watching "Kelly's Heroes" over and over doesn't mean you never again want to see "Field of Dreams" or "The Great Escape." Action on the track has been particularly unpredictable this year. It would be great to be able to say the same about the outcomes.
What keeps us coming back every week is the lone item on a list of its own -- the close competition that NASCAR regularly provides, the tense, hard-fought kind of spectator experience that makes you holler to an empty room and break into a sweat.
Whether we take our seats on the front straightaway or in front of the TV, that feeling is what we're after. The feeling of not knowing what will happen, knowing that all the way to the final lap, anything and everything can change in the mere blink of an eyelash. The knowledge that yes, Johnson or Hamlin or the Busch of your choice could very well win the race, but so could Stewart, Edwards or Kahne.
Or Jeff Gordon. Because that's what I'd really like to see.