In many ways, NASCAR was Jeff Gordon's last resort.
The story has been told countless time before, but the California native spent his formative years behind the wheel of a dirt sprint car. He was an emerging open-wheel prospect that had no aspirations concerning Charlotte and Daytona by his 16th birthday.
At most, his grandest goals included the Indianapolis 500.
To that end, his stepfather and mother moved him to Indiana to shepherd an open-wheel career. He became the youngest driver to start a World of Outlaws race at Eldora Speedway in 1984. He made the feature in four of his five overall WoO attempts.
Speaking to Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the Dale Jr. Download podcast, Gordon says he expected to spend the rest of his career in dirt sprint cars.
"All I wanted to do was race these cars," Gordon said. "That was when I first started racing professionally –where you go to the pay window and they give you a few hundred bucks if you did OK.
"I wasn’t thinking NASCAR at all. Actually, I was thinking World of Outlaws Sprint Cars. I wanted to be a World of Outlaw sprint car driver. My heroes were Steve Kinzer and Doug Wolfgang. I got to race with those guys when I was like 14, and it was insane."
Gordon partnered with team owner Terry Winterbotham in 1988. Together they won championships at Eldora, Mansfield and Millstream. He earned a couple of World of Outlaws podiums, too.
But it was short-lived.
"I get this ride with this awesome team, (and) I'm like, 'This is my break. This is going to do it.' I don’t know if I just felt the pressure or if I just didn’t have what it took, but I started wrecking the hell out of this thing and costing this car owner a lot of money.
"I got fired."
Thus, Gordon and stepdad John Bickford found themselves looking for a ride. That's how Gordon ended up on pavement, driving midgets for Rollie Helmling. In his very first race, Gordon entered and won the 'Night before The 500' at Lucas Oil Raceway in Indiana.
"I went. New track record, won my heat race and won the race," Gordon said.
From there, Gordon became the well-documented star of ESPN's Thursday Night Thunder USAC midget racing series.
Gordon thought he could parlay that into an IndyCar career, but they rejected him without an abundance of funding. Larry Nuber, the television voice of Thursday Night Thunder, suggested Gordon reach out to NASCAR teams. He tested a Hugh Connery-owned NASCAR Busch Grand National car at Rockingham. He impressed in the No. 67 to such a degree that he ended up joining Bill Davis Racing. He and crew chief Ray Evernham went on to lead Hall of Fame caliber NASCAR careers.
But it started with a teenager who thought he would spend his racing days as a World of Outlaws contender.
"So I really wasn’t going to be a NASCAR driver. It just happened," Gordon said.
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