June 17, 2011
By Rebecca Gladden
It was kind of funny hearing people talk about Jeff Gordon's win at Pocono on Sunday. All the questions about his age and racing legacy during the post-race press conference made Gordon sound like a man 20 years older than his present age of 39.
“I'm going to be 40, but I'm not in the rocking chair yet," he bristled when asked where he would rank his career among other NASCAR greats.
Asked how he wants to be remembered, Gordon replied, in part, "I'm just not there yet. I'm just not in that frame of mind to put it in perspective. It would be way too premature to talk about it."
Agreed.
Perhaps the questions were prompted by the fact that Sunday's win was a historic one for Gordon. The victory, his 84th in the Cup Series, moves him into third on the all-time wins list, tied with Darrell Waltrip and Bobby Allison.
At the same time, Gordon was asked what it's been like for him to "drop off the radar" in recent years, while teammate Jimmie Johnson has collected five straight championships.
Questions like these compel me to remind people about the 2007 season.
Back in 2007, Jeff Gordon was having a monstrously successful year. Heading into Richmond in September - the final 'regular season' race of the 36-race season, Gordon had four victories and 20 top-10 finishes to his credit and was leading the points with a whopping 317-point lead over second-place Tony Stewart.
At the time, Jimmie Johnson was sixth in the standings, 430 points behind Gordon. He had five wins to Gordon's four, but five fewer top-10 finishes.
During the offseason between 2006 and 2007, NASCAR had announced changes to the Chase for the Championship points format, which had been introduced three years prior.
As in prior Chase seasons, the top drivers would have their points reset for the final 10-race 'playoff.' But, starting in '07, the Chase drivers were seeded according to the number of regular season wins plus a ten-point bonus per race win.
What this change meant for Gordon in 2007 was that after Richmond - a race that he entered with a 317-point lead in the standings and a 430-point lead over Johnson – Gordon saw his points lead vanish. When the points were reset for the Chase, he suddenly found himself ranked second, 20 points behind Johnson. The 48 team had won the Richmond race for a total of six wins and 60 bonus points to the 24 team’s four wins and 40 bonus points. At the time, Gordon had 21 top-10 finishes compared to 16 for Johnson.
As you know, Johnson went on to win the 2007 Sprint Cup championship, his second consecutive title in what would become a string of five.
Gordon finished the 2007 season ranked second, 77 points behind Johnson.
Over at NASCAR.com, they have a set of statistics for each year since the Chase began in 2004 known as the "what if" data. Each season's table depicts the unofficial final standings if the Chase points reset had not taken place.
In 2007’s what-if scenario, without the points reset, Jeff Gordon would have won the Cup championship by 353 points over Johnson, despite the fact that Johnson won four of the final ten races - a testament to just how big a points lead Gordon had amassed during the first two-thirds of the season.
Interestingly, the "what if" numbers also show that Gordon would have won the 2004 championship by 47 points over Johnson. Under the Chase format, Kurt Busch won the title with Johnson second and Gordon third.
Without the Chase, Gordon could be a six-time champion in pursuit of number seven - a feat which would tie him with NASCAR's all-time championship leaders Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt - rather than a four-time champion playing catch-up to his teammate and five-timer Jimmie Johnson.
Rest assured, I fully understand that hypotheticals are meaningless in sports. If the Chase were not in place, teams would have used different strategies throughout the season and the results would no doubt have been different than the “what if” data shows.
My point in bringing this up, however, is not to argue that Gordon has been robbed of two titles, but to show that he has not been as irrelevant in recent years as many people seem to think.
Asked about this situation in 2007 – particular the instantaneous loss of his 430-point lead over Johnson when the Chase was seeded – Gordon said, “The points are whatever NASCAR decides to make it and we’re going to race the championship however they do it. The one issue that I’ve got is that there’s no way you can write history and compare history if it constantly changes, and there’s no way that you can compare a champion back before the Chase to once the Chase started, and there’s no way you can compare a driver in the Chase if they’re changing it constantly. I think it’s very hard to really create new history for the sport when they change it like that.”
Perhaps that is Gordon’s real answer to the questions about his place in NASCAR history.
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