Jeff Gordon has no regrets about discovering Jimmie Johnson
Hendrick Motorsports' Jimmie Johnson talks to teammate Jeff Gordon (right) at Dover International Speedway in May. // Bill Anderson, NASCAR Scene
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HOMESTEAD, Fla. - Jeff Gordon laughs when he talks about how few times he has finished ahead of Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson in recent years, but that doesn’t mean that Gordon in any way regrets helping bring Johnson into the Hendrick fold.
Gordon, who is also co-owner of the No. 48 Hendrick team, says that he began hearing about Johnson when he visited a test at Darlington Raceway and saw Johnson driving a Herzog Motorsports entry. In 2000, Johnson drove that entry full time and began to catch the eye of some other team owners.
Gordon headed to Darlington to watch Ricky Hendrick, the late son of team owner Rick Hendrick, test in preparation for what is now a race in the Nationwide Series but was then known as the Busch Series. As he looked across the track, though, another driver caught his eye.
Although he'd heard of Johnson, it was this test that really grabbed Gordon's attention and started him down a path that led to the suggestion to No. 48 team co-owner Rick Hendrick that they put Johnson in their new car.
"I was just standing on top of the truck just watching, and I saw a car out there that was running the right line, quick, and looked good, but I didn't recognize anything other than it was a red-and-white [No.] 92 car," Gordon said Friday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where Johnson could clinch his fourth consecutive Cup title this weekend. "So I went over to Ricky, and I was talking to him about the lines and I said, 'Hey, if you get a chance, watch that guy. He's pretty quick, and he's running a line that you need to run.'"
Then he asked Hendrick who that was and was told it was Johnson. Gordon said that he didn't believe Johnson had that many laps at Darlington, one of NASCAR's toughest tracks for young drivers to manage. So he went and asked Johnson how many times he'd been there - and learned it was his first day on the rough asphalt.
"That right there, that's pretty impressive - a guy that had never been there before that picked it up that quick," Gordon said. "After that it was hearing his name from time to time watching the Nationwide races."
And then they raced against each other at Michigan International Speedway later that season - and Gordon became even more impressed.
"He had actually come to me after the drivers meeting and had asked me some questions about some opportunities that were coming his way, and then we had the race, and we had like a three-lap shootout there at the end, and he got by me at the end. And it was only for fifth or sixth or something, but it stood out," Gordon said.
While the four-time champion said that he had already been impressed with Johnson before their head-to-head battle, that helped spark his decision to look a little more closely at the driver.
He saw a driver accomplishing things with an underfunded team, and after talking with Johnson, he thought about how teams might be interested in moving Johnson to Cup.
And he thought, why not us?
"It just so happened at that time we were building our new shop, and we were wanting to build it with two cars in that shop, and we were just happened to make some decisions and just the fact that Jimmie came to me and said he had some teams interested in putting him in Cup cars just made me think, 'Maybe he's the guy that we can bring along and build this thing around,'" Gordon said. "And I pitched that idea to Rick, and Rick had some interest."
These days, Johnson is a three-time consecutive Cup champion who stands on the verge of a fourth.
He says that he can't imagine his career developing the way it has if he had landed with another team.
"I don't even know if I would have had a chance to race in Cup if it wasn't for Rick," Johnson said. "I don't know what he and Jeff both saw in me back in 2000 as I was a mid-pack Busch driver. They saw it, offered me a job. Nobody else was calling offering me a job.
"I don't think I'd be where I am today without Jeff and Rick, what they've put on the line for me."
Since Johnson debuted with the team for three races in 2001 and then full time in 2002, he has more than fulfilled the expectations of his team owners.
Gordon, though, laughs at the notion that he started the era of Johnson's dominance era in NASCAR.
"I definitely don't take that much responsibility," Gordon said when asked about unleashing Johnson. "I'm very proud of what that team's accomplished, and I'm proud to have been a part of it from the beginning. It's a bittersweet thing because as a driver, we won the championship in '01 when they ran their first race. They watched us finalize and win that championship in '01, and I think maybe in '02 I finished ahead of him in points. I don't think I've finished ahead of him in points since then.
"It just reminds me of when the 24 team [of Gordon] came together and the people that made that happen. How it came together and how it clicked and all the right things happening, it reminds me a lot about that, so I'm happy for those guys being able to be a part of something like that."
