Hendrick Motorsports' Jeff Gordon will never forget 1994 victory at the Brickyard
Hendrick Motorsports driver Jeff Gordon has won four times in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series competition at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. // LaDon George, NASCAR Scene
INDIANAPOLIS – Before Hendrick Motorsports driver Jeff Gordon was, well, Jeff Gordon, he was an upstart driver with a ton of potential. Gordon had won the Coca-Cola 600 in 1994 for his first victory in NASCAR’s Cup series, and his star was on the rise.
Coming to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the inaugural Brickyard 400, Gordon and crew chief Ray Evernham were simply another team trying to chase a victory at Indy.
Every NASCAR team and driver put a lot of emphasis on Indy, and the first winner would go down in history at the famed track. NASCAR brought several drivers and teams to the track before the first race, though Gordon was a rookie in 1993 and wasn’t invited.
“I was very anxious and excited because in 1994 when this was the inaugural event, I was a little bit disappointed that I missed the first running they had here on the track with the stock cars, and I wasn’t invited to that because I was so new,” Gordon said. “I remember seeing video of the cars going around the track and just thought, ‘Man, how cool is that?’
“I asked a lot of the drivers what it was like. It was pretty much an exhibition but everybody was excited about the potential of running here.”
Gordon’s No. 24 team was peaking at the right time this year, and he ended up dominating at Indy.
“When that became a reality it was just perfect timing because, for me, we were really coming in to our own that year,” Gordon said. “We really stepped up our performances as a team and started getting experience for myself as a driver. We just had just won at Charlotte so the momentum was on our side. We knew we could do it
“The confidence was there and we came in here and we were strong all weekend long. The power was really good. It is kind of hard to ever match that memory and those experiences that I had that first time here because we won.”
Evernham started his racing career as a driver, and he wanted to race IndyCars. That dream was never realized, but Evernham does have plemty of memories from the 1994 win.
“The sharpest memory I have is how emotional, how draining it was,” Evernham said. “We pushed the car out onto the track, and when I turned away from the car, it hit me all at once where we were and what we were getting ready to do. We had been so focused on the car with practice and qualifying and all of a sudden we were getting ready to start the race. I got all choked up.
“When we won the thing, I have pictures in victory lane and I just have this blank look on my face. The biggest memory is how much emotion caught up with me when I realized where we were. For me, it's a place I've always loved. I started out wanting to go Indy car racing. I wanted to race in the Indy 500. A. J. Foyt, Mario Andretti and those guys were my heroes.”
