Jeff Gordon, Terry Labonte, Ricky Craven sweep 1997 DAYTONA 500 | 40 wins in 40 days

Editor’s note: This is the 38th in a 40-part series highlighting 40 of the greatest wins in the history of Hendrick Motorsports to finish its 40th anniversary season. A new installment will be released each day from Nov. 22, 2024 through New Year’s Eve. Votes were taken from Hendrick Motorsports employees as well as representatives of the NASCAR Hall of Fame and Racing Insights with all unanimous selections being ushered in automatically. The remaining wins were deliberated and decided upon by a small panel.

CONCORD, N.C. - By 1997, Hendrick Motorsports seemed to have it all. 

It had two drivers who'd won a championship in the previous two years - Jeff Gordon (1995) and Terry Labonte (1996) - a promising young prospect in Ricky Craven, and seemingly enough resources to match or exceed any other company in the NASCAR Cup Series. 

But something was missing as the circuit rolled into Daytona International Speedway for the season-opening DAYTONA 500 that year. 

The team's leader. 

In November of 1996, Rick Hendrick, the company's owner and CEO, was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia, a rare form of cancer with a 5% survival rate at the time. He would need a bone marrow transplant and would endure years of chemotherapy before going into remission in 1999. 

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"I remember going over to his house prior to going to Daytona and talking to him and just not seeing him at the track," Gordon recalled in a recent interview with HendrickMotorsports.com. "He was always at the track. Especially for the DAYTONA 500, and you knew how much that race meant, even though he'd won it before."

The boss was certainly on the minds of his employees as they soldiered on southward. Much of the buildup of that year's Great American Race consisted of supporting Hendrick and cancer awareness, a cause several other drivers in the garage backed as well. Gordon's car featured a sticker on the dash that displayed the phone number, 1-800-MARROW-2, a hotline for bone marrow donation. 

And then, there was the little matter of the race, NASCAR's most storied and prestigious. One that Hendrick Motorsports hadn't claimed since Darrell Waltrip went to victory lane in 1989. 

"On one hand, we were concerned and had heavy hearts thinking about (Hendrick) and wishing he was there but at the same time, we were using it as motivation to get it done," Gordon said. "I think that was across the board for all of us. For Ricky, Terry and myself it was, 'Let's go get this done for Rick.'" 

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By that time, if anyone could win it for the boss, it was likely Gordon who had already begun to scratch the surface of his immense potential at age 25. He'd won 17 races across 62 starts the previous two seasons combined and had always had speed at Daytona, winning a Duel race in his rookie season of 1993 and the summer 400-mile event in 1995. 

Certainly, he was on the shortest list of contenders. 

“At that point in time with Jeff Gordon, you were no longer surprised by any race he won and when he won the DAYTONA 500 that year, you went, ‘Of course. He’s going to win every race where he cranks the engine,’” said Ken Willis, long time sports columnist for the Daytona Beach News-Journal. “Nothing he did for a few years after that was ever a surprise.”

Yet, at various points of the race, a 1-2-3 showing for Hendrick Motorsports seemed anything but possible. 

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Craven's problems started before the green flag ever waved. He started 40th after a crash in his Daytona Duel race. Then, after making a little progress early, he dropped to the back again with a vibration. The crew feared a possible engine issue, but it ultimately held up. 

Labonte's plight began on lap 10 as Robert Pressley spun from the lead pack and did a pirouette before coming to rest in the infield. The No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports entry caught a little damage in the fray and the crew spent the next couple of pit stops making minor repairs including negotiating a toe in issue. 

After Craven and Labonte had both recovered and started working back toward the front, Gordon had an anxious moment of his own. Just past halfway, he felt his right rear tire was going down and dove onto pit road for an unscheduled, green-flag stop. The crew got Gordon back out ahead of leader Mark Martin, who tucked in behind Gordon instead of passing him. On lap 121, still running at the tail-end of the lead lap, Gordon caught a break as Greg Sacks slid into the inside wall, bringing out the race's fifth caution flag. 

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But for the minor hiccups the Hendrick Motorsports contingent encountered, they were all able to stay on track and moving forward, more than many competitors could say. An early crash wiped out a strong Jimmy Spencer car as well as a pair of former DAYTONA 500 winners Derrike Cope and Geoff Bodine. A little later, Harry Gant was involved in a crash with Ken Schrader and Steve Grissom, both of whom had been fixtures in the top 10 to that point. 

During a caution flag for the Sacks crash, Mark Martin and Ricky Rudd each encountered problems on pit road with just 30 to go, relegating them both to the back. Soon after the restart, a six-car breakaway formed led by Bill Elliott with Dale Earnhardt, Gordon, Ernie Irvan, Dale Jarrett and Labonte separating themselves. 

But another big one was triggered with 12 to go. Gordon dove under Earnhardt, getting him loose and the No. 3 slapped the outside wall, snapping back across the field and collecting Jarrett and Irvan. Earnhardt went airborne across the top of Irvan's car, sending debris into the Tiny Lund Grandstands on the backstretch, injuring a couple of spectators. 

Craven, who'd been leading the pack of cars from seventh on back, was allowed to catch back up and on the restart with seven laps remaining, Elliott suddenly had three teammates behind him lined up nose to tail. 

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“Poor Bill Elliott is the leader, and he has three Hendrick cars behind him,” Evernham remembered. “He never had a chance.”

Indeed, the field behaved for a lap, but Gordon laid back, gathered a big run and dove to the inside with six to go. Labonte, with his own run and a big push from Craven, went high in a three-way battle for the lead. With the low lane, Gordon was able to clear and pushed back to the top of the race track and in front of Labonte, leaving Elliott out to dry. When the final caution waved with four to go, Gordon, Labonte and Craven were still 1-2-3 and that's how the race would finish, with the teammates coming across the line in formation. 

"First of all, it's the DAYTONA 500, so, just that in itself is such a big deal and I'd never won the DAYTONA 500 but from the first time we went, we ran good," Gordon said. "Then you take that and how hard that race is to win, knowing Earnhardt and what he'd gone through for years, you don't know. I'd watched him do everything right, dominate and not get it done so you just don't know. Then with Mr. Hendrick and what he was going through and the diagnosis ...

"It was special for so many reasons. I was overwhelmed with winning the DAYTONA 500. The whole team was. Then I'm talking to Rick on the phone in victory lane and he's emotional and excited and I was too. We'd accomplished what we had set out to do. We'd lit up all the lines on 1-800-MARROW-2, so, we were making a difference in the world there. It was a pretty amazing day."

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Indeed, there was much to take away from one of the most special days in Hendrick Motorsports history. An estimated 200,000 phone calls came into the hotline thanks in large part to its exposure during in-car looks at Gordon's dash. The hotline still exists as part of National Marrow Donor Program which also manages the "Be The Match" registry, an initiative the organization still supports today. 

And then there was the on-track ramifications. Gordon and Labonte had already elevated the organization to the top of the heap with Hendrick Motorsports' first two championships the seasons prior. But that would be just the tip of the iceberg, especially for Gordon, whose first DAYTONA 500 win came in the middle of one of the most dominant four-year stretches in the sport's history. He'd add titles in '97 and '98, winning 23 total races in those two seasons. 

In the moment, few took a 1-2-3 finish at Daytona as a signal of what was to come. But in retrospect, decades later, it's easy to assign that kind of meaning. 

“They became the Yankees of the Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig era, the Packers of the Lombardi era, the Celtics of the Red Auerbach era,” Willis said. “They were becoming the gold standard of NASCAR.

“If anything is going to be a signal of amazing things to come, that’s it. Sometimes a victory in the DAYTONA 500 is the ultimate moment in a racer’s career but in that instance, and we didn’t know it at the time, you go, ‘Boy, that was the signal that started this amazing run.’ There was some symbolism there. It was as omen.”

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To this day, the three involved in the finish still engage in a bit of good-natured ribbing. 

“To finish 1-2-3 was really special … The order was wrong, but that’s hard to do,” Labonte laughed.

He'd later add that crew chief Gary DeHart revealed after the race that the No. 5 car had a left-rear tire going down, anyway. 

As for Gordon, upon reviewing the ending, he's still a bit miffed that Craven followed Labonte to the high side instead of going low with him. 

"I can't wait 'til I see Craven next time," Gordon grinned. 

But despite internal disagreements about the ultimate finishing order, all three, as well as Evernham, DeHart and the crews of all three teams, are forever linked by a team sweep - one that served as both a statement to the NASCAR world and a rallying point for an organization and owner that needed one. 

“There were lots of emotional things going on, but I think that showed the strength of focus and the depth of the team that we could rally around the leader, who at that time needed some good things to happen," Evernham concluded. “It was a real stake in the ground for Hendrick Motorsports and a real shot in the arm right when Mr. Hendrick needed it."