With five races to go, this year’s NASCAR Chase for the Cup is focusing on an intramural battle between Gordon and Johnson who have demonstrated in race after race that they are the smartest, sharpest drivers in NASCAR. If Gordon wins his fifth title he will be in a class of his own - as he is already - as the King of active stock car racers, and will be well down the road to becoming one of NASCAR’s greatest drivers of all-time.
Early in the year Gordon passed Dale Earnhardt’s tally of seventy-five Cup wins and his victories at Talladega and Charlotte marked his eightieth and eighty-first wins. Either later this year or sometime next year he should leapfrog ahead of each of Cale Yarborough (83 wins), Darrell Waltrip and Bobby Allison (both with 84) and establish himself as NASCAR’s third most successful driver of all-time behind Richard Petty and David Pearson.
Gordon’s pursuit of his fifth championship has emphasized the point that he is the only truly great driver racing in America today. This is his fifteenth season in Cup- all with Rick Hendrick’s team - and at 36, he may even have a shot at overhauling three-time champion Pearson’s tally of 105 wins.
Will fatherhood slow Gordon down, or start him on the road to retirement? That remains to be seen, but on current form he is driving as well as ever and is also as motivated as ever.
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www.gordonkirby.com
![Jeff Gordon - DuPont Chevrolet [pic credit: image.net]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/303466.jpg)
