RIDGEWAY, Va. – Jeff Gordon has 93 wins in his iconic career. And after all that success, he said Sunday’s victory at Martinsville Speedway stood out as one of his most memorable.
“This is the sweetest, most amazing feeling,” he smiled.
Not only was it the first win of his final full-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, but it secured him as the first of four drivers that will race for a championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway later this month.
“I am so proud of this team. You want to talk about holding back emotions; right now man, wow, we’re going to Homestead! I can’t believe it,” he said as confetti streamed down in Victory Lane. “What an incredible battle that was. We just stuck with it all day long and I was just trying to protect those rear tires and it just all fell into our lap.”
Gordon took the lead Sunday for the final time with 22 laps remaining, surviving one final restart when a caution flag waved with seven laps to go and holding on to become the winningest active driver at Martinsville.
In Victory Lane after the win, Gordon was joined by his wife and children, and he joked that he might have hugged son Leo a little too tightly.
“I squeezed him so hard I don’t think he could breathe – kind of like me those last couple of laps,” he laughed.
But now Gordon can breathe easy that he has set himself up with a shot at a fifth Cup championship to cap his career. No matter what happens in the next two races – at Texas and at Phoenix – Gordon’s place at Homestead is secure.
After a regular season that saw him go winless and enter the Chase while "a lot of people didn't count on" the No. 24 team to advance, Gordon made sure on Sunday that his final race will have a championship on the line.
“Man, this has turned into a fairytale year,” he said. “I can’t believe it. Homestead is going to be an unreal weekend and we can completely focus now -- we talked about this in our meeting before the race that if we could make it through today and win, all our focus is on that Homestead car.”
And when Homestead arrives?
“Just like we did today, we’re going to grind it out. We’re going to give them something to think about,” Gordon said. “First, we’re going to improve our race car a little bit for Homestead. But don’t count us out. We’ve proved that during this entire Chase and we certainly proved that today. This team is fired up, and we’ve got some momentum now.”