Gordon racing down history

AVONDALE, Ariz. – Cale Yarborough is next. Then Darrell Waltrip and Bobby Allison.

By season's end, Jeff Gordon likely will have them in his rearview mirror, leaving only Richard Petty and David Pearson ahead of him on NASCAR's all-time wins list.

At 200 career wins, Petty is untouchable. Forever. At 105, Pearson probably is, too, but not because Gordon, now sitting on 82 career wins, couldn't stick around long enough to win another 23 races, but because he won't.

"I don't think that number is attainable," Gordon said Friday. "I don't want to sound negative. Anything's possible. We might go on an incredible streak here that I didn't see coming. But just looking at where I'm at in my career and in the way that things have been working for us, right now it's about winning the championship."

A fifth title is certainly attainable, especially considering points-wise Gordon is off to the fastest start of his career.

But four months shy of his 38th birthday, he knows the end is closer than the beginning. Not that it has to be. Gordon could easily race for another dozen seasons if he wanted to. Thing is, he doesn't. That's why he won't catch Pearson, not unless he goes on one of those runs, sharpening the focus on 105 in a hurry.

Regardless of where he ends up, Gordon already has it figured out. Petty and Pearson did most of their damage before 1972, when NASCAR ushered in its modern era. Prior to the '72 season, NASCAR held upward of 62 Cup races a year. Today it's 36.

Granted, Pearson rarely raced an entire season, but there were five when he competed in more than 40 races in a single year. Fifty of his victories came in those five seasons.

"I think that's what changes [Pearson's] number completely," Gordon said. "I think it would be different if that was in the modern era."

So instead, Gordon has his sights set on Waltrip and his 84 career victories, all of which came post-1971. Pass Waltrip and Gordon will become the winningest driver of NASCAR's modern era, which could happen before Cinco de Mayo.

Three times in his career Gordon has snapped winless streaks of at least 22 races only to go on to win again the following week. When last we saw Gordon, he was winning at Texas, snapping a career-long 47-race winless streak.

Gordon will start fourth in Saturday night's Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix International Raceway.

"Those other numbers are cool stats, and at the end of the day and at the end of my career that's something I'm definitely going to look back on, and when it's somebody like Darrell and Cale, that's huge," he said. "[But] the competitor inside me and this team knew that we had opportunities to win and that we were still capable of wins, so that motivates me more than anything else."

In other words, it's the winning, not the number of wins, which motivates Gordon now, or so he wants us to believe. But Jimmie Johnson, his teammate and friend, thinks otherwise.

"I know how important it was or how special it was for him when he was able to tie [Dale] Earnhardt here a couple of years ago for wins and I could say through my own experience and as I watch myself climb up through those different stats, it's activated something in my mind to where now I pay attention to it," said Johnson, who's ranked 15th on the all-time wins list with 41. "I can only imagine that Jeff does as well. He's trying to leave his mark and put his mark in this sport. It's already well established, but when you're that close to being one of the best ever, I'm confident that it's a motivating factor for him."

If there is a number Gordon is surely actively chasing, it's seven. That's how many championships Petty and Earnhardt have.

A few years ago it seemed like a certainty that Gordon would get there. But it's been seven full seasons since he's lifted the championship trophy, time enough that most of his peers never have been thumped by Gordon the way everyone, including Earnhardt, was in the mid-1990s.

If you're looking for motivation, there it is. By putting today's competition in his rearview mirror, he does the same to yesterday's. The endgames may be different, but the goal remains the same.