72 WINS! Only 4 behind Big Dale..

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Betsy

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And still not getting the respect he deserves.. When will the fans wake up and see who should be their hero?
Betsy ;)
 
Oh, I think Jeffy gets the respect!! :) Jeff will probably never get 7 titles to match Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt (no one will for the same reasons no one will ever get 200 wins like Richard did.......the sport has changed and the competition is way higher than those days). But that doesn't mean Jeff won't carve his own niche in the sport. I see Jeff easily equaling (and even passing) DW's 84 wins in a career. People may root against Jeff Gordon, but that does not mean they don't respect him. I root against him.........but I know a great driver when I see one. And Jeff Gordon is right up there with the greatest. :D
 
DE_Wrangler_2 said:
Oh, I think Jeffy gets the respect!! :) Jeff will probably never get 7 titles to match Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt (no one will for the same reasons no one will ever get 200 wins like Richard did.......the sport has changed and the competition is way higher than those days). But that doesn't mean Jeff won't carve his own niche in the sport. I see Jeff easily equaling (and even passing) DW's 84 wins in a career. People may root against Jeff Gordon, but that does not mean they don't respect him. I root against him.........but I know a great driver when I see one. And Jeff Gordon is right up there with the greatest. :D
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Yep!:beerbang:
 
So fans should change who their hero is now?
All hail Gordon and no others????!!!!
 
DE_Wrangler_2 said:
Oh, I think Jeffy gets the respect!! :) Jeff will probably never get 7 titles to match Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt (no one will for the same reasons no one will ever get 200 wins like Richard did.......the sport has changed and the competition is way higher than those days). But that doesn't mean Jeff won't carve his own niche in the sport. I see Jeff easily equaling (and even passing) DW's 84 wins in a career. People may root against Jeff Gordon, but that does not mean they don't respect him. I root against him.........but I know a great driver when I see one. And Jeff Gordon is right up there with the greatest. :D
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:beerbang: Well said :D :beerbang:
 
I dont know how much I can beleive most fans respect him. When last year at this track, people threw all the trash they could find on his car.
 
smack500 said:
I dont know how much I can beleive most fans respect him. When last year at this track, people threw all the trash they could find on his car.
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And a pic at thatsracin showed half of the garbage to be his sponsers product. Pepsi. :p
 
And the trash throwing... that is the sort of thing I am thinking.. At various tracks around the country I have seen fans throw trash at VISITING hotshots that only come to the biggest local races and WIN all the money..
I know that is not to be tolerated but I CAN understand why that might happen from time to time.
But Jeffy is in his own league racing with the same drivers every weekend. How many other drivers are SURE to get boo'd at every track?
Betsy
 
The trash thrown last year by out-of-control beer :beerbang: guzzling 'fans' at Gordon's car had nothing to do with respect or disrespect. They wouldn't know what that meant. It was because their idol didn't win.
 
Steve007 said:
Bud cans aren't blue.
Try again.
http://www.krd1.com/thatsracin/wallpapers/2004_aarons_499/07.jpg
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You are correct Steve007 in that Bud cans arent blue. BUT, Busch cans are! Which is also a product from the makers of Budweiser, Anheiser Busch. And, Pepsi blue is much darker than those in the picture you linked! :p

I don't think the fans were as upset at the winner as they were in the yellow flag finish. JMHO Now, I still don't think it was in the least bit appropriate of a way to show displeasure either.
 
Lol!! That's a bit of a stretch maj, but I can go one better. :)

They may well have been Busch cans, but the company that makes the logo paint for those cans is Dupont. :growl:
 
majestyx said:
I don't think the fans were as upset at the winner as they were in the yellow flag finish. JMHO Now, I still don't think it was in the least bit appropriate of a way to show displeasure either.
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I dont see how you could have watched the end of that race and believe that. Sure the yellow flag finish was partly the reason, but so was the winner. This is why some people just threw trash onto the track, and others threw garbage directly at jeffs car.
 
Steve007 said:
And a pic at thatsracin showed half of the garbage to be his sponsers product. Pepsi. :p
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What does this have to do anything. The picture also shows a vast majority of the fans wearing alot of red.
 
miller cans are blue. ;)

i was there and alot of there where bud cans bud!


i think Jeff could win more then 7 titles. He has 4 now and still got many years of racing to go.
 
Titles are extremly hard to win now days. I don't think Jeff will win 7 titles but he is one heck of a driver. He will catch DW in wins.
 
Still, much of the fan base for NASCAR is seated deeply in the south and with that, you can't get much southern than Dale Earnhardt or Richard Petty. Jeffy has never been a southerner and as such, many people feel that he invaded the south with his California/Indiana will. However, having said that, he still commands a lot of respect for many people and will become, once he ages a few more years, the real elder statesman of NASCAR. Jeff was probably the first of the new guys to come into the sport and right into a good team without having to pay his dues as it were. Now days, all the new guys are expected to win right off the bat and if they don't, they will be out the door looking for a new ride. But how many times have you heard the phrase, who will be the next Jeff Gordon? We may never have another Jeff Gordon, but we'll certainly never have another Dale Earnhardt or Richard Petty. It's not our father's game anymore.

People now days think that Dale Earnhardt had all the fans, but I'm here to tell you that for every fan he had, he also had three or four ABE fans. Jeffy is no different than that and probably gets as much praise as Dale or Richard ever got. It's just that his ABG's are far more vocal than those before him.
 
I remember the days of being a "pom pom" twirler because I was a Dale Earnhardt fan. I can vouch for ABE'ers a few years back. And I see the same with the Gordon fans.........there are a lot of ABG'ers out there. But, you know what? All those boos and moans you hear when Jeff is introduced at the races isn't what many think it is...........it's the fans of other drivers booing the guy they fear the most for the drivers they root for. I'm speaking from what I hear when Cutie and I go to California........Jeff's adopted home state. Along with all those boos there are just as many cheers......it's just a lot of noise and for some reason people seem to pick up on the boos. I have yet to see anyone seriously boo Jeff Gordon........it's always with a smile and quite a bit of ribbing with fellow fans of other drivers all around them. It's just good natured joshing among the fans in the stands. I can't undestand why anyone would take it seriously. I'm sure there are some out there who truly hate Jeff Gordon.........but they would never dare get too far out of hand in the stands. They are seriously out numbered and would (literally) be run out of the stands by both Gordon fans and any number of other fans of different drivers. Granted my perspective is of California Speedway only. I can't speak for the fans in Talladega, AL..........but my guess is it's probably about the same. The beer can throwing last year was mostly for how the race ended......under caution and with a new "no racing back to the flag" rule that no one quit understood completely. It makes sense to me if you have a grand stand full of beer drinkers unhappy with the way a race was concluded with a new (little understood) rule they would show their displeasure in some way. Throwing crap on the track and at the winner of the race is not a good way to do that, but it was spontaneous and beer cans were handy. I'm not excusing it, but I do see how it happened. But, it's high time we get over it.........especially some of the Gordon fans who think it was all directed at Jeff excusively. The same thing would have happened if Gordon and Mark Martin were side by side at the instant of the caution and the race ended under yellow........the fans just were not happy about the caution. And a fan in the stands has almost no way of knowing who really was in the lead when the flag flew. There are giant screen TV's in the infield but during a race it's hard to remember to look at them........and there is no way you can listen.

No one's convinced me yet that Jeff Gordon is not respected......he is respected. He's feared, and every fan of another driver knows he is good. They know he's one of maybe two or three drivers in the sport that are the very best.
 
I have a feeling Jeff Gordon will have over 200 wins by the end of his career. He's just too dang good! ;)
 
Snagglepulse said:
I have a feeling Jeff Gordon will have over 200 wins by the end of his career. He's just too dang good! ;)
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Let me see now. That sounds a little optimistic to me. :) If someone has hard numbers they can correct me (I'm doing this off the top of my head.......I did not do any searching because the numbers will be about the same anyway). But I'm thinking Jeff is about 32 years old now and figuring he stays healthy and keeps a top notch ride until he's 50 years old......he has about 18 years to get 129 wins. He's been in Cup for about 12 years. That 71 wins so far translates to a little less than 6 wins a season. He would have to step it up a to a little over 7 wins a season to reach that 200 mark by the time he's a real old timer in the sport. :D That's asking a lot with today's competition among the drivers as well as with the teams that are running today!

If my numbers are off because of his age or the number of years he's been driving in Cup I believe he might be a little older and maybe been in the series a year or two longer.........the makes it a bigger challenge to reach the 200 win mark. So, do the math..............I don't see it happening. But, if you feel better believing it, I see no harm in it. :beerbang:
 
buckaroo said:
Still, much of the fan base for NASCAR is seated deeply in the south and with that, you can't get much southern than Dale Earnhardt or Richard Petty. Jeffy has never been a southerner and as such, many people feel that he invaded the south with his California/Indiana will. However, having said that, he still commands a lot of respect for many people and will become, once he ages a few more years, the real elder statesman of NASCAR. Jeff was probably the first of the new guys to come into the sport and right into a good team without having to pay his dues as it were.
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I understand alot of people dont like it that jeff got a good car, without having to go through alot of the things that alot of drivers before him did. However what I dont get is people saying they dont like jeff because of this, while being a fan of jr.
:confused:
 
I don't remember very much of anyone saying Jeff stepped into a top notch car right off the bat and that's why he got off to such a fantastic start on his career. In fact, I think the 24 team was brand new right out of the box when Jeffy got that ride at Hendrick. Ray Evernham was new too. The Dupont team did it on their own and made it work for Rick Hendrick........Hendrick did nothing but scout out a good driver and put a good crew together. It was up to them to get it done..........and, obviously, they did.

Pretty much the same thing with Jr.........Daddy didn't win those races and Championships for him in the Busch series. Daddy did what Rick Hendrick did.......gave his son a good team, sponsor and an opportunity. Jr and the 8 team did the rest on their own. Not quite as successfully as Jeff and his group, but they earn their keep at DEI.

I sort of get a kick out this recent whining and crying about the new drivers not having to push brooms in the garage before they get a chance to show what they can do. That crap comes directly out of DW's mouth. These drivers coming into Cup now have shown owners and sponsors what they can do long before they ever get the chance to even talk to Rick, Teresa, Jack, Robert, Richard, Kyle, Bill, Ray, or any other owner of a major Cup team. Sounds so much like envy to me. Did Jeff hand Jimmie Johnson a guarantee of a top team in the 48? No.........he found a driver he thought could drive successfully in Cup, put a team together and got a good sponsor. Johnson and the 48 team have done the rest on their own. The days of sweeping and moping the floors for a lap around the track to show someone you can drive are over.........you better have shown them you can drive before you even call them for a job. The "Days of Thunder" are long over.....Cole Trickle has retired. :D
 
http://www.thatsracin.com/mld/thatsracin/sports/motorsports/nascar/races/talladega/11539768.htm

Just after the race ended, a young boy in Dale Earnhardt Jr. regalia and seated just in front of the press box was upset that his driver didn't win and, perhaps moreso, that Jeff Gordon did. The lad, perhaps 7 years old, showed his displeasure by extending both of his middle fingers upward toward the track. His father noticed the gesture and, you guessed it, added his fingers to the salute. In the absence of Norman Rockwell, Mom was there with the digital camera, recording the moment for the scrapbook. And, thankfully, she still had the camera out when her cherub pulled down his pants to moon Gordon as the four-time champion did celebratory doughnuts in the grass just in front of their seats.
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smack500 said:
I dont see how you could have watched the end of that race and believe that. Sure the yellow flag finish was partly the reason, but so was the winner. This is why some people just threw trash onto the track, and others threw garbage directly at jeffs car.
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If that's the case, he'd get garbage thrown on him every time he wins. I didn't see any thrown on him Sunday.
I'm sure it was mostly Jr fans that threw the trash, but I think it was beacause of the yellow flag finish more than the 24 car winning.
I read about the kid mooning the 24 car. Embarrassing if you ask me.

Btw, I'm a Jr fan and I like Gordon too.
 
DE_Wrangler_2 said:
The beer can throwing last year was mostly for how the race ended......under caution and with a new "no racing back to the flag" rule that no one quite understood completely. It makes sense to me if you have a grand stand full of beer drinkers unhappy with the way a race was concluded with a new (little understood) rule they would show their displeasure in some way. Throwing crap on the track and at the winner of the race is not a good way to do that, but it was spontaneous and beer cans were handy. .
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I agree with most of what you said, but there have been many finishes under caution. And how does it make sense to throw anything at anybody?

The bottom line is that a bunch of half drunk hoodlums were not happy with not who won, but who didn't win.
 
And, thankfully, she still had the camera out when her cherub pulled down his pants to moon Gordon as the four-time champion did celebratory doughnuts in the grass just in front of their seats.
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Now there's something that might catch on. Imagine, thousands of Lil'E fans mooning Victory Lane everytime he didn't win. :growl:

Or, better maybe they could moon Jeff everytime he came around the track. Kind of like a following wave. :D

The fact that the father joined in rather than correcting his child is sad. The fact that the mother felt compelled to take a picture of it speakes volumes of how this child is being raised. I won't even comment on his cute moon... :confused:
 
Wrangler, if only every non-Jeff Gordon fan thought the same way. Yes, the 24 team was brand new when Jeff got into that car for the first time. Jeff may not have come up thru the Busch ranks like most of the drivers at that time, but I do believe that he paid his dues in other ways. I do not believe that any team owner would put a guy in one of their cars that had never been in a race car of any type. That would be some very expensive teaching.
 
Some very interesting reading here. Clearly DEW, you are basing your opinions on the California mindset. Believe me, down here in the South, while there are plenty of Gordon fans, many of which are die hard type fans, there are some very seriously anti Gordon fans and I would say that the biggest part of the Jr. fans fit into that category.

Actually, Jeffy is originally from California and more or less was adopted in Indiana. Jeffy's rise to the Cup series was premature in the minds of many people, mostly those who are Ford fans. Jeff drove for Bill Davis and the plans were for Jeff to drive one more year for Bill and they would then take the team to the Cup level. Hendrick, seeing an opportunity, waved big bucks in front of Jeff and the rest is history. At that time, I was talking regularly to a close friend of Davis' and she told me quite a lot of the plans, but also told me how disappointed so many people who were connected to Jeff were. I guess I would be very disappointed too if I let such a catch get away.

A short story to show how serious Earnhardt fans in this area are. I had just gotten my new Jeep and put my Bill Elliott plate on the front. A bunch of us were going to meet and eat in Kanapolis the night before one of the races at Charlotte. When we went back out to go home, someone had broken off my plate and stomped on it and scratched a #3 on it. Clearly, they were imature idiots, but they were trying to make a point. BTW, this was during the time Elliott was driving the #94, a period in which he never won a race. AND, Elliott is a good southern boy. :)

Times are a changing for sure and as I said before, more and more drivers are from all over the country now days and of course, many of the tracks here in the south are closing in favor for tracks out west. You know how the people of the south are proud of their heritage and how they feel about losing tracks to the west. Imagine how they will react if let's say Martinsville loses a date to a new track in New York City. Man, we may witness the rising of the south once more. :D
 
I remember being in the stands at the 98 or 99 C-C 600 and someone had stolen a set of radios from Gordon's team. They were transmitting crap on his freq during the race! You name it and they called him that. Eventually they switched to another channel and I could not find them again, too bad, they had come back from a few laps down to win the race.

I have been to all the tracks and the one with the roudiest fans by far is 'Dega so I am not surprised at all they tossed stuff at the 24 there.
 
I have to agree with buckaroo, evidently things are different in the west and the north. Ive herd people say things about jeff, that theres no way they were joking about. Last year I went to my friends house to watch a race, hes a sterling marlin fan. However his parents were diehard dale sr fans, and jr fans now. Anyway during the race jeff was winning, his dad made a comment like I wish hed just crash into the wall. His mom just laughed, and was saying "yea Id pay to see that". I dont like causing any trouble so I didnt say anything. At any rate Ive herd people say horrible things on and off the track, and there was no sign they were joking in any way.
 
Couple of stories from TMS way.... Not exactly the mother-lode of NASCAR history or "Deep South Roots".... Unfortunately, it happens everywhere.

1. At my first NASCAR race with great seats at TMS in '99. Gordon is running in 4th 40 something laps into the race and cuts a tire. Hits the wall in turn 4 at around 188 MPH and slides through the infield on the front stretch. Apparently he is banged up pretty bad! His first 43rd place finish (maybe still his only 43rd place finish???). The kid next to me who couldn't have been older than 9 years old (dressed in Dale Sr paraphanalia) jumps up and down cheering like the Red Sox fans did last year when they won the series. Dad and mom were silent. I was appalled, dumb and naive.

2. At church a couple of months after Dale Srs unfortunate passing.... another elementary age kid states to me... "I wish it had been Jeff Gordon"..... We had a little discussion about what he had said. He later clarified that he would have preferred it had been Jeff over Sr... I helped him understand what he was saying

3. Qualifying in 2000 at TMS. Take my 5 year old..... with some work buddies. Proceed to watch 4 or so grown adults stand up and give Gordon the bird while yelling their interpretation of what the bird meant at Gordon all 4 times around the track (warmup, qualifying & warmdown). Thanks for making the track fan friendly. By the way, this cracks me up... the thought that a driver going 180-190 MPH can see some fan 40-50 yards up in a sea of other fans shooting the bird and yelling expletives. Sure hope it made those guys feel better!

I have nothing against Jr. However, the Gordon haters get carried away just a bit too much in IMHO..... Based on stories 1 & 2 above (and the That's Racin' article summarized earlier), some parents need their parenting license yanked!

Just my 2 cents!

AW
 
No everyone here are not Gordon fans. But everyone else on this board has more sense to wish someone to crash into a wall and get killed. :eek:
 
If not wishing any driver crashes and dies means I'm a fan of that driver, I guess I am! That's a damned harsh thing to say about anyone.
 
Ok smoke now we know how you feel about Jeffy... tell us how you feel about your Mama? I am sure she dropped you on your head at birth!
Betsy
 
Smoke1TS20 you should be banned ! simply because you are NOT a race fan.


wishing death on anyone is unacceptable
 
Steve007 said:
Am I the only one here that is a fan of Jr. and Gordon?
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No! I'll betcha you are NOT alone.. Most of us have a VERY BEST FAVORITE DRIVER and 7 or 8 near favorite drivers... And we also have opinions of which drivers should be replaced with ANY OTHER DRIVER that might have a better chance of winning..
Some of these drivers seem to be holding their jobs because their Daddys, brothers or Uncles did some good driving...
Betsy ;)
 
Those are very harsh sentiments Smoke1 TS20. I also think a short vacation is in order.
Many here may be able to guess how I feel about some drivers but that is so far beyond the pale as to leave me cold...
 
Smoke1TS20 said:
message removed. But, you know what you posted.
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I won't dignify quoting your additional post to this one, but I WILL say this.....................this forum nor it's members stand for that type of behavior. You may not like Jeff Gordon, but there is NO NEED for you to spew that kind of talk here. It will not be tolerated. If you want to talk like that, you just need to go back to the That's Racin' forum. That's the only way that those folks over there know HOW to talk. :mad: No matter the like or dislike the folks here have for ANY driver, we know where the line is drawn in what is and isn't appropriate behavior. Your's was certainly inappropriate. Keep that thought and any others like it to your self.


Disclaimer: I would say the above to ANY person no matter WHAT driver it was being said about.
 
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