Dale Earnhardt called Jeff Gordon “Wonder Boy” to his face, in front of cameras, and grinned about it. He told the press that if the kid won the championship, they’d serve milk at the celebration.
Gordon won in 1995, showed up to the banquet, and raised a glass of milk straight at him. The crowd loved it. Earnhardt probably loved it more. That is the version of the story everyone knows. What Gordon revealed on Bussin With The Boys is the part nobody got to see, and the question he never got to ask.
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“One of the regrets I had is that I never got in a position to ask him that question.”
The question was this. How much of it was real?
“I definitely would have said, hey, ’95, we were going for the championship — how much of that was just total bulls***? Because it was getting under my skin.”
Jeff Gordon was 23 when the rivalry hit full heat. He was locked in, focused on winning, not interested in the noise. Earnhardt was doing something else entirely. Every nickname, every jab in a press conference, every bodyslam into Turn 1, Gordon now believes Earnhardt knew exactly what each one was doing and for whom.
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“He was doing it because he knew it was working. Not just to get under my skin, but it was working for the media, it was working for NASCAR and the growth and fans.”
And the reason nobody pushed back? Jeff Gordon gave it straight. Whatever you gave Earnhardt, he returned it five times over. You move him once, he takes you out of the next five races. The math never worked in anyone’s favor.
“They’d forgive him because it’s…” Gordon trailed off. He did not need to finish it.
Here is where it gets interesting. While Earnhardt was calling Gordon “Wonder Boy” on television, the two of them were business partners off it.
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They were co-investors in Action Performance, the company that held exclusive rights to NASCAR die-cast cars and merchandise. Every No. 3 Earnhardt shirt a Jeff Gordon-hater bought, and every No. 24 Gordon die-cast an Earnhardt fan bought out of spite, put money in both their pockets simultaneously. The rivalry was real on the track. In the boardroom, they both earned off of it.
Outside the track, Earnhardt was also the one teaching Gordon how to handle team owners trying to control licensing rights. What fumed young Gordon was just the fuel Earnhardt knew would spark NASCAR into mainstream success.
Earnhardt had figured out that Gordon’s crossover appeal was pulling new audiences into NASCAR. Young fans, suburban fans, people who had never watched a race before. The rivalry gave everyone a side to pick. And when fans picked sides, they bought merchandise. Earnhardt understood that better than almost anyone in the garage.
Jeff Gordon never got to sit across from him and confirm it. Earnhardt died at Daytona in February 2001, and that talk never happened. The question of how much was performance and how much was genuine has stayed with Gordon ever since. He still does not have the answer.
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The post “They’d Forgive Him”- Jeff Gordon Comes Clean on Biggest Regret Behind Infamous Intimidator Rivalry appeared first on EssentiallySports. Add EssentiallySports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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