Gordon looks to break ahead of the pack in the place it all began

Jeff Gordon's win at the inaugural Brickyard 400 brought out the conspiracy theorists. AP Tim Tuttle's Mailbag Submit a comment or question for Tim. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND

The conspiracy theorists jumped all over Jeff Gordon's victory in the Brickyard 400 in 1994. They floated rumors that somehow, someway, NASCAR had given Gordon, the hometown hero, The Call in Sprint Cup's inaugural race at the storied Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Why, you ask, would NASCAR do that? Some believed it feared the novelty of a first race wearing off and the crowd showing a decline the next year. Gordon, with his droves of fans in the Midwest from his days winning short-track races and USAC championships, would guarantee the massive crowd, estimated at 250,000, would return.

Or, how about this one: Gordon was the best story and would get the best play in the nation's newspapers, magazines and on television and radio stations. The first Brickyard had delivered a Daytona 500-style media presence, one it never had before in the mid-summer, and the better story and the bigger the play would help maintain it in future years.

Naturally, the conspiracy said, NASCAR knew this wouldn't be the kind of Cup race its fans were accustomed to seeing. With those flat turns and long straights, there wouldn't be much passing and, on top of that, spectators couldn't see the entire track. Unable to count on the traditional fan, NASCAR had to reach out to a new group of open-wheel types to fill in the gaps.

Let's face it: the Brickyard 400 was an event NASCAR desperately wanted to succeed and desperate measures were needed.

Exactly how NASCAR got the tire on Ernie Irvan's car to go down with five laps remaining was never discovered. Irvan was leading and he and Gordon had waged a lead-swapping duel, four times in 15 laps, when the tire was punctured.

Gordon, with one victory in the middle of his second Cup season, beat Brett Bodine to the checkered flag by .53 of a second. Gordon was the youngest driver in the field, having turned 23 two days before the race. He wasn't a driver with stock car roots. He hailed from California and spent his teenage years in Indiana. Gordon seemed like an unlikely winner in such a momentous event and it inspired the conspirators, who found their reasons to believe.

Winning at Indianapolis was even a little difficult for Gordon to believe.

"Without tears coming up, I tell you, this is the greatest thing in the world," Gordon said that day. "It's far past our expectations. I never thought it would happen."

History, of course, has long ago vindicated that win in the first Brickyard. Gordon, with his 81 victories and four Cup championships, has made everyone a believer. Gordon also won at Indianapolis in 1998, 2001 and 2004. He became a legend, not a flash-in-the-pan.

Gordon undoubtedly would like to add to that legend in Sunday's 15th Allstate 400 at the Brickyard, but what he really needs most is a win anywhere. Gordon's past success at Indy makes it a good prospect.

He's been stuck on 81 wins, sixth on the all-time list, through 24 races, 19 this season. With that notable exception, he's had a decent season. Gordon is sixth in the points, 128 in front of No. 13 Clint Bowyer in the Race for the Chase with seven races to go.

"We want those wins, we want to be more competitive," Gordon said. "We've got the consistency down. Now, we just need to lead more laps and put ourselves in position to win more races. You never know when you're going to have your next win.

"It's the most competitive racing series there is. It's one of those things where I'm frustrated. I feel like we could do better. We're a great team, just performance-wise we've missed a little bit and we've let a couple of opportunities slip away."

Gordon's hometown is Vallejo, Calif., but his family moved to Pittsboro, Ind., when he was 14 to provide more racing opportunities. Pittsboro, located 20 miles west of the famed track, honored him several years ago by naming a street Jeff Gordon Boulevard.

"I always tell everybody Pittsboro is my adopted home," he explained. "Because I was older, the experiences kind of stuck with me a little more, but I am from Vallejo. A lot of people don't realize I lived there for 14 years. I lived in Pittsboro a lot less than that, but very significant things happened in my life, especially in racing in Indiana. I don't think I'd be here if not for that.

"The reason why Pittsboro became so known as my hometown is because nobody could pronounce Vallejo (correctly pronounced Val-a-o). We would go to a race track and fill out the entry blank and they'd be announcing me and my mom or dad would say, 'They didn't get it right again. Valley-ho, or Valley-Joe.' The announcers could never get it right. So, obviously, when we moved to Pittsboro, they could pronounce Pittsboro, no problem."

The Brickyard 400 clearly isn't just another Cup race to Gordon, who visited the track while in town to do media interviews on the Thursday prior to Chicagoland.

"Just every time you go around there, there is something about it that gets you fired up. It's kind of like going to Daytona, but for me there's even a lot more memories and excitement because as a kid I remember taking that bus around there, going to the museum, and just thinking how cool would it be to race at the track one day.

"Now, I get that opportunity and I've won there four times, so it's always a race that I really look forward to and this team looks forward to. Pretty much every team and driver out there, they're geared up wanting to win that race. It's a big one."