Jeff Gordon punches ticket to NASCAR Championship 4 with final win at Martinsville | 40 wins in 40 days

Editor’s note: This is the 33rd 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. - After one of the more infamous endings in recent memory, a couple of resulting fines and one, big, two-race suspension levied by NASCAR, there were a lot of pointed words in the media and elsewhere in the aftermath of the 2015 fall race at Martinsville Speedway. 

But Jeff Gordon's postrace shouts echoed loudest. 

"We're going to Homestead(-Miami Speedway)!"

Go figure, a race that largely played out like a horror show for NASCAR finished as a storybook ending for one of its all-time greatest drivers. 

Gordon, who along with the rest of the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports team, had been searching for that elusive win throughout the season, finally found it right in the place everyone should've figured it'd be: the 0.526-mile, flat, paper-clip-shaped short track in the Virginia mountains. One that had already been the site for so many memorable moments in his career and the organization's history. 

HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS: Dale Earnhardt Jr. wins second DAYTONA 500 in 2014

"It's Martinsville," Gordon concluded in a recent interview with HendrickMotorsports.com. "Of any track I felt like we could get it done, it was that one. And of course, we had a little help that day too." 

Maybe it was divine intervention. Maybe it was being in the right place at the right time. Maybe it was an early retirement gift from competitor Matt Kenseth. 

But whatever sent the dominos falling in the direction they did that day (and night), it added a punctuation mark - no, an exclamation point - to a Cup Series career that concluded with 93 victories (third all time) and four championships. 

When the series rolled into Martinsville that fall, Gordon was four races from finishing his final full-time year as a driver, which he'd announced prior to the start of 2015. And though the 24 group had been solid in advancing to the Round of 8 (then known as the Eliminator Round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup), it hadn't yet gone to victory lane. All that, one season after the team had collected four victories and made a legitimate championship push, one that came undone with a late-race snafu also involving Brad Keselowski at Texas Motor Speedway in the Round of 8. 

That was the past. But Gordon and Gustafson knew an opportunity at redemption was still in front of them and even winless, they'd done enough to give themselves a chance. 

HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS 40 WINS: Jimmie Johnson wins Brickyard 400 on way to title

"(2014) was an amazing year. We should’ve won more races and the championship, so that was pretty disappointing and then it was also disappointing that we were running good in ’15 too, but we weren’t getting the wins," Gordon said. "But we were clearly advancing and competitive enough to advance to the final round of the playoffs."

“We had a decent car, we didn’t have the best car,” Gustafson recalled. “But in Jeff Gordon style, he’s always going to be good at Martinsville. I would say we had a fourth-place car and he keeps it in contention all day. Then, Joey (Logano) and Matt (Kenseth) were better than we were and we all know what happened and yeah, the rest was history.”

Now, about that history. 

The day even began strangely. Rain pushed back the start and with no lights having been installed at the track to that point, NASCAR was forced to make a few adjustments in the interest of trying to get all 500 laps completed before sundown. Drying efforts were still being performed on pit road as the field got rolling and the event's first seven laps were run under a yellow flag. 

HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS: William Byron wins 2024 DAYTONA 500

Once the race went green, for the most part, it was a typical Martinsville race complete with key pit-road miscues, 18 caution flags and plenty of comers and goers. Yet, as he mostly had all year, Gordon hung around, anchoring himself in the top 10 and searching for an opportunity.

After a year of near misses, things finally began to fall the 24 team's way on a restart with 66 laps to go. Keselowski made contact on the back stretch, sending Kenseth spinning down across the track and collecting Kurt Busch, bringing out the event's 15th caution. Gordon, who'd restarted sixth, narrowly avoided the wreck and moved up to second place. 

Kenseth had been eliminated from championship contention after a race at Talladega Superspeedway the week prior. The previous week at Kansas Speedway, Kenseth was in position to advance, leading with just four to go when Logano spun him from the lead and eventually won the race. With the victory, Logano advanced and was still in the title picture at Martinsville. 

Following the race at Talladega, Kenseth and Logano exchanged words. But Kenseth was far from done. 

Logano qualified on the pole and was still leading on the ensuing restart with 57 laps to go with Gordon clear in second place. Kenseth lost nine laps, while repairs were made to his critically wounded No. 20 car. 

But as Logano started to pull away, Kenseth was back on track and was becoming bigger and bigger in the leader's windshield. Logano swung high to pass going down the straightaway, but Kenseth never turned entering the corner, plowing Logano into the wall with 47 laps to go with fans erupting in applause. Logano, who led a race-high 207 laps, was suddenly out of the race, at least as far as the win was concerned. He'd finish 37th. 

HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS 40 WINS: Jimmie Johnson claims victory in 25th anniversary race

The incident would spark a wave of criticism from the media and NASCAR levied a two-race suspension on Kenseth. In a nonrelated incident, Danica Patrick was also hit with a $50,000 fine for a repeated dustups with David Gilliland. 

That would all come later. Back in Martinsville, a red flag was displayed. Suddenly, there at the front, free and clear of all the drama and now with a race in his lap at arguably his best track, was Gordon. And there was just one thing left to do: Finish. 

It wouldn't be easy. First, the extended stoppage to clean the track brought darkness even closer. Second, despite the crashes, there was a hoard of fast cars for Gordon to try and hold at bay. 

Gordon and much of the field chose to pit once the yellow flag came back out. However, AJ Allmendinger and Denny Hamlin stayed out with Gordon lining up third on the restart. With fresher rubber, Gordon bided his time in third place until another caution flew with 35 to go as David Ragan spun. 

HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS 40 WINS: Chase Elliott breaks through for first career win

Still, Gordon remained patient until an opportunity finally presented itself with 28 to go. Hamlin attempted a pass of Allmendinger but the two made contact, allowing Gordon to slip by for second place. As temperatures increased in the tires, the difference in them became more apparent. Gordon reeled Allmendinger in quickly and with 22 to go, completed a pass for the lead. 

One final hurdle presented itself in the form of a spin and caution with seven laps to go. A two-lap shootout to the end began on the ensuing restart and though Jamie McMurray drew even on the outside through turns one and two, Gordon was too much on the inside lane in three and four as he cleared and pulled away. 

Gordon parked at the start-finish line, in front of a roaring crowd. He climbed from the car, flashbulbs exploding in the dark and extended his arms. Somewhere between the hugs and handshakes, he doubled over in emotion. Soon, his children would join him in victory lane. 

Now, just over nine years later, he's able to fully express what he felt when win No. 93 finally came. 

HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS 40 WINS: Jeff Gordon, Ray Evernham snooker field at Charlotte

"I guess as the year went on and now you're starting to see your career truly wind down and there's only so many races left and you hadn't won - and on top of that, you knew if you won in this round that it takes you to go race for a championship - that all hit me when we won that race," Gordon admits now after some reflection. "I don't know how much I was really putting value in all that previously. Yeah, we would talk about it, people would ask in the media, but it hadn't really hit me emotionally until we crossed the line and won that race. And then, it was just a volcano explosion of emotion and excitement.

"We're going to Homestead, we get to go race for a championship, I get to wind down my career  and I’m not coming back ... It wasn’t like, 'Ok, now I won, maybe I’ll come back.' It was, 'No, this is done, this is it.' And for it to happen at Martinsville - that was the one track I was probably as known for as the Brickyard - it just was special to celebrate that with the team and go race for a championship. And seeing my kids and wife running out on the track, man, that was cool."

The team would go on to finish sixth in the championship race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, third among Championship 4 contenders. And while it wasn't quite the ending Gordon wanted, the victory at Martinsville gave him the closure he needed to step away. 

"I wanted to win a race, at least," he said after Homestead. "I wanted to show that I still had what it takes, and I think the Chase showed that. I'm extremely proud of my driving and our effort these last 10 races. That's something that's going to stick with me for a long time."

HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS 40 WINS: Terry Labonte wins, becomes NASCAR's 'Iron Man'

As for his legacy, it had long been sealed prior to that night in Martinsville. Gordon's Cup Series career began in the season finale in 1992 and exploded in parallel with the sport's popularity throughout the 90s, which included one of the most dominant stretches of any athlete in any sport of all time. From 1995-1998, he won 40 races and three championships and along with the late Dale Earnhardt, became the ambassador and face of the sport. 

But for Gustafson, that last win in Martinsville did add to it. And there's no doubt where Gordon ranks in his book. 

“For my money, Jeff Gordon is the greatest stock car driver in the history of the sport and the reason I say that is exactly, Martinsville (in 2015),” crew chief Alan Gustafson said. “No driver that I’m aware of, or at least in my generation, has come into the sport winning and left the sport winning. And he did. His last full-time race was in the championship, at the top – no one else has done that. He was a threat from the time he started to the time he ended, and nobody has been able to sustain that and that’s why, I say for my money, he’s the best driver to ever race in stock cars.”