NASCAR Cup Series career of Jeff Gordon

Business and motorsport In popular culture American stock car racing driver Jeff Gordon enjoyed a successful career in the Cup Series, the top category of NASCAR.

The following week at Rockingham, he won the pole with a lap speed of 157.620 miles per hour (253.665 km/h), breaking the previous track record of 157.099 mph (252.826 km/h) set by Ricky Rudd.

[24] He won his fifth pole of the season at Charlotte but after that race, NASCAR officials found unapproved wheel hubs on his car, and fined the team $60,000 while placing Ray Evernham on probation indefinitely.

Despite allegations that he had sandbagged to claim a better starting spot for the second segment, Gordon said that "once the drivers began running on the racing line, it became difficult to pass without assistance".

[30] In May, Gordon won The Winston at Charlotte in a Jurassic Park: The Ride scheme; the car was modified by Evernham with assistance from Hendrick chassis engineer Rex Stump,[31] and as a result, it was considered illegal by other team owners.

He went on to win races at Atlanta, Fontana, and Sears Point,[40] the latter in which he defeated Mark Martin by .197 seconds (the closest finish at the track since electronic scoring was introduced).

In May of that year, in The Winston, rain made the track slick, causing Gordon spin in turn 2 on the first lap,[50] and was t-boned on the driver's side by Michael Waltrip.

A strong showing in the Daytona 500 was ruined when Sterling Marlin sent Gordon spinning in the infield grass with a handful of laps remaining, while leading the race.

[68] Gordon followed that up with a victory the following weekend in the Pepsi 400 at Daytona after receiving a push from teammate Jimmie Johnson for his second consecutive restrictor plate win.

[79] Despite these disappointments, on October 23 Gordon won the Subway 500 at Martinsville, his first win in 22 points races, and his seventh career victory at the 0.526-mile (0.847 km) track, which leads all active drivers at the facility.

However, Gordon finished outside the Top 20 in three consecutive races at Kansas, Talladega and Lowe's, due to troubles with the fuel pump,[87] a crash[88] and an engine problem, respectively.

Gordon eventually finished sixth in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series standings, 219 points behind champion and his teammate Jimmie Johnson.

[112] Gordon collected his 66th career pole at the Dover International Speedway for the Camping World RV 400,[113] and led 30 laps in the race while scoring a Top 5 finish, while Greg Biffle won.

At the Shelby 427 in Las Vegas, Gordon led 17 laps but cut a tire coming into the pits and as a result he finished sixth, despite having a shredded fender.

Gordon was leading on the final restart of the Crown Royal Presents the Heath Calhoun 400, but was passed by the winner of the race, Kyle Busch.

Then, while side-by-side with Clint Bowyer and Kevin Harvick, coming through the tri-oval, Johnson and Earnhardt, who had also been drafting together the entire race, squeezed to their inside.

At Bristol, Gordon led 206 laps, but finished third behind Martin Truex Jr. and Brad Keselowski due to the placement of his pit stall (at the start of the backstretch) slowing him down because of NASCAR's timing lines for the track.

[134] At Richmond, Gordon had a poor start, but shot back with a finish of third, with Kevin Harvick winning the race, and Carl Edwards in second.

[139] At Talladega, Gordon won the pole position,[140] and immediately began experiencing overheating issues with his car and was forced to ride in the mid 20s for a majority of the race, but was eventually caught up in a crash on lap 142 that took out him out along with Carl Edwards, Juan Pablo Montoya, Landon Cassill, Dave Blaney and Martin Truex Jr.[141] In the 2012 Toyota/Save Mart 350, Gordon would reach a milestone by reaching the 23,000 laps led mark after leading 13 in the race, the most of the current Sprint Cup drivers and ranked 7th all-time.

At Atlanta, pit strategy put the 24 team in the hunt for a victory, but Gordon couldn't muster past the 11 of Denny Hamlin and wound up in second.

[145] The following week at Richmond, despite troubles early in the race that mired him a lap down, Gordon rallied to finish second to Clint Bowyer, and made his 8th Chase for the Sprint Cup.

[164] However, the following week at Daytona, Gordon was running well until he was caught up in a crash with Denny Hamlin, Matt Kenseth and A. J. Allmendinger in the tri-oval on lap 149,[165] leaving him with a 34th-place finish.

[184] At NASCAR's Media Day in Daytona on February 13, Gordon opened up the possibility of retiring after the 2014 season in the event he won the championship, and stated that he is "probably more serious (than joking).

[194] In the Toyota Owners 400, Gordon led a race-high 173 laps, but finished second to Logano, marking his seventh top ten in nine races, tied with Matt Kenseth for the most.

[195] At Kansas, Gordon claimed the lead late in the race after Brad Keselowski pitted, and defeated Kevin Harvick by 0.112 seconds for his 89th career victory.

Had the Chase not existed, and if the old points system was still around, Jeff Gordon would have been the 3rd driver in NASCAR history to win 7 Cup Series championships, joining Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt.

88 team reserve driver for the Brickyard 400 following Dale Earnhardt Jr. being sidelined with concussion-type symptoms a day earlier, forcing him out of the car for the rest of the 2016 season.

[254][255] From 1993 to 2000, Gordon carried a rainbow scheme, designed by NASCAR artist Sam Bass, which was meant to represent DuPont's image as a "company of color".

[267] Gordon also had a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles paint scheme on his car for the Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on October 13.

During the race weekend, Axalta arranged an event for more than 20 engineering students from the school, as the company's CEO is Texas A&M University alumnus Charles Shaver.