When it comes to the world of sports, I'm a very loyal person. So loyal, in fact, my boss, Gary Gerard, often calls me delusional. Win or lose, no matter how bad they play, who coaches them or who dons their uniform, I cheer for the Chicago Bears, Bulls and Cubs, and the Notre Dame football team. While I have a passion for baseball, basketball and football, my favorite sport – and it's not even close – is auto racing. I fell in love with racing as a youngster. My first job was helping clean up the grandstands at Warsaw Speedway. There was a little bit of cash exchanged, which I thought was cool at 11 or 12 years old, but the best part of the gig was getting in free to the races on Saturday nights. I cheered for sprint car drivers Tony Elliott and Bimbo Atkins, and when it came to the street stocks I rooted for Harvey Hayes and Bob Johnson. When Warsaw Speedway closed in 1990, something that upsets me to this day, I quickly discovered the growing phenomenon known as NASCAR. NASCAR was growing out if its southern roots and stepping onto the national stage, largely due to Dale Earnhardt (and maybe Tom Cruise’s character Cole Trickle in the motion picture Days Of Thunder). For whatever reason – the sunglasses, the mustache, his driving style, the fact we had the same first name – I adopted The Intimidator as my favorite driver, and I cheered and cheered for the man behind the wheel of that black No. 3 Chevy. A couple years after I jumped on the NASCAR bandwagon, the series gained an incredible amount of speed in the Hoosier State when a young open-wheel star named Jeff Gordon made the move to Charlotte, N.C., the hub of stock car racing. Gordon was born in California, but moved to Pittsboro, Ind., as a teenager to help his racing career. Indiana has always claimed Gordon as its own, and every track you go to – dirt or asphalt – you're sure to find No. 24 hats and T-shirts. He made his first Winston Cup (yes, I said Winston Cup, that's what it was called back then) start in the last race of the 1992 season, qualifying 21st and finishing 31st at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Entering his 24th season, the driver of the No. 24 Chevy for Hendrick Motorsports has competed in 761 Cup races, amassed 92 wins, 320 top-fives, 454 top-10s and qualified on the pole 77 times. He won championships in 1995, 97, 98 and 2001. He won the inaugural Brickyard 400 in 1994, and captured his fifth win at Indy in 2014, making him the winningest driver ever at the famed 2.5-mile oval. Even as a tried-and-true Earnhardt fan, and as much as it pains me, I can admit that Gordon is a rare breed. What he’s accomplished in racing is hard to put into words. It’s even harder to put into words what he’s done FOR the sport ... bringing in sponsors that hadn’t been involved in the sport, and making NASCAR popular among the female demographic. And I haven’t even mentioned his charity work. Thursday morning, Gordon made it official that the 2015 season will be his final full-time run in the Cup series. His announcement really made me think about things ... things like where he fits in the history of the sport, whether or not his face belongs on the Mount Rushmore of stock car racing with the likes of Earnhardt and Richard Petty. The answer is yes. Without a doubt. As a Bears fan, I never liked Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre. But man did I respect what he did on the football field! The same is true of Gordon. Because I was a fan of Earnhardt Sr., I never liked Gordon. I still don’t. I’d be a liar, though, if I said I didn’t have the utmost amount of respect for him.
