September 3, 2002

This weekend saw Jeff Gordon visit Victory Lane for the second week in a row. Talk about ending your winless streak! The 24 team knows how to do it in style - with a bump and run on Rusty to win at Bristol and a fifth Southern 500 win Sunday afternoon.

Normally, the average race fan has one of two reactions to Gordon. A quick snicker, a roll of the eyes, and an immediate dismissal of any topic related to The Boy Wonder. Or an emphatic nod of the head followed by a passionate tome of Jeff's championship ways. But this past week saw a meeting of these two camps. Strange karma brought these two polar opposite camps together. Either that, or Armageddon is setting in.

Gordon came in the slick West Coast Kid without the Southern roots and drawl of the drivers who made the sport. We saw him in Frito Lay commercials and Pepsi ads. He was on every mainstream talk show - including Regis & Kelly (nee Kathie Lee), David Letterman, and Leno. Reason enough for some to dislike him.

And reason enough for some to cheer him on. For those, he was a refreshing change to the run-of-the-mill NASCAR driver. He was the "polished" driver - in both looks and speech. He was a media darling, making it easy for those who cheer for him to get their hands on every word Gordon uttered.

Some rolled their eyes and immediately walked away when Gordon, this supposedly "green" rookie, came onto the track at Daytona in 1993 and won one of the Twin 125s. The Kid turned heads, grabbed a lot of attention and then he became the youngest driver to win a Winston Cup championship.

Plus three more Winston Cup championships. In a word, dominance.

Dominance that makes some cheer all the louder. Gordon won the inaugural Brickyard 400. He was the youngest driver to win the Daytona 500 and the youngest driver with 50 Winston Cup races. He won four Winston Cup championships in less than ten years.

To his fans, that puts him on the same track as Earnhardt and Petty.

Gordon has been booed and chastised. He has been applauded and heralded. As a race fan, you're in one camp or another. You can not be in both. So, what happened this past week?

A strange, possibly cosmic, event set this whole thing in motion. The #24 team struggled. Gordon, the defending Winston Cup Champion, went winless for 31 races. Race cars were torn up, and the story became "the streak." Jeff Gordon hadn't been to Victory lane since September of 2001.

Until last Saturday night at Bristol when Gordon laid his bumper onto Rusty's car and went right by on the low side. The ol' Bump 'n' Run with only two laps to go. With that one move, Gordon pulled the #24 car back into Victory Lane.

And then, two clashing worlds collided on a starry night in Bristol, Tennessee. As expected, Gordon's fans cheered the loudest - screaming, yelling, and jumping up and down with joy that their driver was back in Winner's Circle. The surprise came when the anti-Gordon contingent quietly applauded and nodded their approval.

Like the ardent Yankee fan in "For Love of the Game" who stands up and congratulates Kevin Costner's character on his perfect game, the Boo-Birds cheered, albeit mildly, for Gordon and the #24 team. For through Gordon's struggles, those who hated him saw him as human - perhaps for the first time since he came onto the circuit.

The Boo-Birds even gave Gordon & the 24 team a "way to go" for the Southern 500 victory, for their struggles were many and their triumphs were few during this past year. Two in a row for our defending Champion can be applauded.

The anti-Gordon fan giving him an "atta boy"? Patting the Gordon fan on the back and offering congratulations? It's official. Armageddon has set in.

You can send feedback to L.M. Burke at: Insider Racing News