The 2010 Sprint Cup Series Season Was Yet Another Year of Change for Jeff Gordon

Everyone changes. People grow up. Some become more mature. The highs and lows strike and test the true character of individuals.

Nothing can ever stay the same, that’s just how life is.

[media-credit name=”Simon Scoggins” align=”alignleft” width=”300″][/media-credit]For 39-year-old Jeff Gordon he knows change all too well. Gordon has gone through quite a few changes in his career as one of the sports most successful drivers. Like going from the kid champion of NASCAR to raising his kids in NASCAR.

Days when Gordon walked into the garage carrying a briefcase, containing a Nintendo GameBoy, a cell phone, a racing magazine and a jar of peanuts, seem long ago.

There was also that thing sitting above his upper lip. The mustache.

A puny mustache, a reminder Gordon was just a kid trying to make it in a grown mans garage. Except, through the late 90s it became Gordon’s garage as he rose to multimillionaire and multi-time champion. Of course, Gordon had the trophy girl permanently on his arm and in the pictures.

But the picture wasn’t perfect. Gordon wasn’t a driver others could hang out with; Brooke to effect stole him from the NASCAR world. He came to the track, did his job, and left. For Hendrick Motorsports it worked out well, he went to the top of the sport and dominated, but for friends they saw less and less of the champion.

Change.

Never going out as much, spending much of his time in his motorhome. Afraid to speak his mind, even get a haircut and constantly working to make Brooke happy. The couple even moved away from the NASCAR capital by going to Florida. And Gordon stopped using his stepfather, John Bickford, as his business manager.

The once thought of fairy tale marriage ended in 2002 and by the following year he met a woman that would help him change again. This time the change came in the best possible way.

No more distance between him and fellow competitors or strained family matters. Today’s Gordon is all about family.

It’s about three people actually: Ingrid, Ella Sofia and Leo Benjamin.

The fierceness which won him four championships and 82 races will never die, when the driver of the No. 24 Drive to End Hunger/DuPont Chevrolet is on the racetrack he won’t shy away from moving you out of his way.

Finding comfortness in his own skin has Gordon no longer afraid to stand up and address an issue he feels important.

When the checkered flag falls however, he wants to get home as quickly as possible. Ella is waiting, ready to run into Papa’s arms. Life and time are much more valuable.

“Especially when you start having a family, I think it really kicks in because you look at how valuable your time is and how important it is to spend time with your family,” Gordon said at the conclusion of the 2010 season.

“You can go out there and work, work, work, and work to try to capitalize on the opportunities while they’re here, but there becomes a point where peace of mind and relaxing and enjoying your time becomes important,” he continued.

“I think when you’re young like most of us, we feel like, lets take advantage of it. As you get a little bit older, you start thinking about which ones are important and just being a little bit more efficient with your time and enjoy your time to yourself or with your family more.”

Racing gets Gordon excited. The blood flows or boils and brings out a different side in the four-time champion. It just can’t make him light up like he does when talking about his children.

In a sport where motivation isn’t hard to come by, Gordon’s children have become his biggest motivators. You won’t find him hungrier for wins than right now, not even when he was trying to win all those titles and races.

Championships have become an afterthought in a way. Have no fear, he wants another one, but getting back to the winners circle is more important for more than just the sake of winning: he wants his family to go there with him.

Ella hasn’t been to victory lane since she was four months old at Talladega in 2007. Neither she nor wife Ingrid was with Gordon when he won Texas in 2009, his last win to date.

After Ella was born Gordon’s change was evident; it just became more prominent when Leo was born this year. Holding his children on pit road or smiling for the camera as they sit in his car. Joking about changing diapers and racing for different children-related causes is the life Gordon now lives.

Happiness. True happiness. For the first time in life he has everything he’s ever wanted and you won’t find him smiling, laughing or having more fun than what these last two years have produced.

Ever think you’d see Gordon driving a racecar designed by his daughter? Or that it would come at the same track where Gordon had made his debut 18 years ago. The Atlanta Motor Speedway will forever have a place in Gordon family history.

When Kyle Busch drove a pink car at Richmond a week after Gordon’s “Papa’s Car,” Gordon poked at Busch asking, “my three-year-old designed mine, what’s you’re excuse?”

Ever think he’d appeared on an episode of Sesame Street? This is a new, changed Gordon. It’s hard to believe sometimes. But a constant change of good doesn’t hurt anyone.

Looking in the rearview mirror no longer applies to blocking Dale Earnhardt. It entails seeing his children’s faces as he plays driver of another kind. “We’re a foursome now,” Gordon said of his family.

The other family, Gordon fans who have come to intimately know him since the start of his career, have had to adapt to change of their own.

The fourth championship in 2001 wasn’t supposed to be the last. Back then, easy to say since it’s coming upon 10 years, it looked as though Gordon was going to keep going and going.

The fans were going to, all the way to the souvenir haulers as everything involved with Gordon went up. But once Jimmie Johnson entered the picture in 2002 things changed again, for Gordon and NASCAR.

Perhaps those hit the hardest with Johnson’s dominance are Gordon fans. After winning title No. 5 Johnson said he didn’t think about overtaking his friend, foe and boss in championships.

Gordon fans are well aware of the numbers and most aren’t happy with them.

There are those who feel Gordon had had to sacrifice himself for the now five-time champion. Their driver was to be the one compared and challenging the marks of The King and The Intimidator. They’re all on the backburner now, not seriously contending for a championship since 2007.

Besides championships, they’ve had to adapt to Gordon not winning races near as frequently. Or what they hope doesn’t become a recurring theme in revolving doors or crew chiefs: Evernham, Loomis, Letarte, and now Gustafson.

What Gordon fan thought they would ever have to ask themselves when the day would come that Gordon went back to the top?

The paint schemes have changed too. It might sound minor, but they too heard all about the rainbow jokes hurled their driver’s way. Rainbow to flames to a complete different sponsor.

And they’ve seen their driver go from soft spoken and polished like a Ken doll, to pushing and shoving – see Matt Kenseth (both Bristol and Chicago and Jeff Burton – and bluntly saying on TV “I’m pissed right now.”

Gordon though doesn’t believe anything on the track has changed, saying, “Well the one thing that I want everybody to understand is that I have not changed. I’ve not done anything different today than I did 10 or 15 years ago. I race people they way they race me and when somebody pushes and shoves, I’m going to push and shove back.”

Gordon may not feel it, but everything has changed and continues to. Life moves on with some left trying to keep up. Things change in NASCAR as well. Nothing ever stays the same.

Drivers though, aren’t thought of as ones to go through such dramatic changes. Even when change does arrive it doesn’t always stick.

Yet, here’s Jeff Gordon who has gone through every change life can throw a guys way.

And he’s not done yet; the next change has already comes as Gordon leaves the only shop he’s ever known and gets a fresh start with a new team and equipment.