This is about the Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon nobody knew.
As a youth, Dale Earnhardt Jr. caught glimpses of the relationship.
“When I first met Jeff Gordon, I was racing a late model at North Wilkesboro,” Earnhardt Jr. recalled at a news conference last week. “I was trying to qualify for a race I had no business being at.
“And my dad walked up with this guy [who] had a little mustache. Daddy had his arm around him. Said to him, ‘I want you to meet my son.’ “
Then to his son: “He said, ‘This is Jeff Gordon.’
“I’d seen him on ‘Thursday Night Thunder’ (the old ESPN telecasts of dirt-track sprint car racing), so I knew, kind of, who he was.”
That was Junior’s first sight of a bond far stronger than Big E ever let on to the public — a bond that, if the public would only understand it now, would ease the explosion of anti-Gordon outrage among fans of the Earnhardt family.
They are furious Gordon tied the late legend’s career victory mark of 76 at Phoenix last Saturday night, and could take sole possession of sixth place on the all-time NASCAR winners list as soon as Sunday at Talladega, Ala., where he won the pole Saturday.
If they only had been with Junior, when he was 18 and Gordon was 21 at the now-defunct short track in North Carolina in 1993. If they only had seen how the old man saw the coming stardom in his youthful competitor.
There was another rookie at that race, with a titanic surname: John Andretti.
“When Dad saw John and Jeff come into the sport, as soon as they came in, like the second race they ran, I saw Dad with his arm around ’em, walking ’em through the garage, telling them about things,” Earnhardt Jr. recalled. “He spent six to 10 months with them, week in, week out, talking to ’em about the cars, the sport, the people, the etiquette, the way of getting around, how things are done, how things ain’t done. And I think Jeff gives Dad a lot of credit for teaching him a lot.”
Indeed Gordon does.
“I learned so much from him,” he said after he won at Phoenix and marked the moment by waving a black No. 3 flag on his victory lap. “I miss him a lot out there.”
And off the track as well.
“Daddy didn’t teach Jeff nothin’ about driving,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Jeff knew how to drive. Daddy taught Jeff a lot about the off-the-racetrack stuff and the mentality of the business.”
Later, unnoticed by a public that was diametrically split between Gordon and Big E — and chose to deem them bitter enemies — “they were business partners,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “They were in properties and in companies..
“[On the track,] they had a lot of respect for each other. Daddy probably had more respect for Jeff, as a driver and as a person, than I’ve seen him show for a lot of people he drove against for years.”
Earnhardt Jr. was the first to greet Gordon last Sunday, to thank him for displaying his father’s flag after the victory.
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Both Earnhardt Jr. and Gordon have caught a lot of backlash for that. Big E’s bitterest fans considered it disrespectful, a taunt, that Gordon would wave the “3” flag.
“I don’t understand the ‘disrespect’ mentality,” Earnhardt said. “I mean, what? When you win a race, it’s all about you at that moment. You’ve won, you’re happy, you’re excited, you’re the best of the best.
“And Jeff decided to split that down the middle, 50-50, and give my father some respect. He took half of his moment and gave it to my dad. I thought that was really classy.”
Afterward, Earnhardt Jr. was co-guest of honor at a party thrown for Gordon.
“That was a good party,” said Earnhardt Jr., whose standards for parties are quite high. “Me and him are pretty good buddies. … He was so nervous that we were going to take it [the flag-waving] the wrong way. I don’t see how in the world you could take that the wrong way. And that’s what’s bothered me so bad [since].
“Jeff can’t win for losing. He can win a race. But with the fans he has a hard time getting his point across. Which is unfortunate, because he was trying to make a good gesture. I don’t think anybody in the world could find anything wrong with that.”
Legions did — the same legions that cling to animosity that never existed.
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