Jeff Gordon has spent week doing 'everything I possibly can' to prep for Indy
INDIANAPOLIS – Jeff Gordon said he’s been cramming like a college student for a final over the last few days to prepare for his return to the Sprint Cup Series.
“I’m going to tell you, the last two days, I don’t think I’ve ever put as much effort in to preparing for a race, and crammed in all that I have in the last two days,” Gordon said. “That process itself has been really interesting, exciting and fun and has me pretty fired up to get in the car and feel what it is like to be in there.”
Gordon is filling in for Dale Earnhardt Jr. in Sunday’s Brickyard 400 and the next race at Pocono. It’ll be the first time in 798 career Cup starts where Gordon has raced a car other than the No. 24.
“I’m going to be racing against the No. 24 car [driven by Chase Elliott] out there,” Gordon said. “I mean, none of us anticipated this happening. You can’t plan. You don’t know how you are going to react to it. To me, once I get behind the wheel and I’m inside the car I don’t know what is on the outside of that car. It’s a race car and I’m going to be focused on driving, not focused on anything else. But, when I’m standing outside of it and I’m looking at the No. 88 car and Dale Earnhardt, Jr.’s name over the door – it is certainly a unique situation that I don’t know how that is going to impact me.”
Junior, who will miss at least three races because of what the team has said are concussion-like symptoms, tweeted Friday morning that he was feeling better; a tweet that was referenced multiple times by Gordon and team owner Rick Hendrick when referring to Earnhardt Jr.’s status.
Today is the 1st day in many that I sensed improvement. Seen small gains during my physical therapy as well. Light at the end of the tunnel.
— Dale Earnhardt Jr. (@DaleJr) July 22, 2016
Gordon said he found out about the chance to drive at Indy via a text from team owner Rick Hendrick that said “Call me.” And once Hendrick told him what was going on, Gordon said he didn’t have to think twice about accepting Hendrick’s offer.
“I get that text, and I looked at [wife Ingrid Vandebosch] and said ‘Oh boy, here we go’,” Gordon said. “I had no idea. When Rick said to me ‘Are you coming to Indianapolis?’ I said ‘Yes I am. I am coming on Saturday’. He said ‘Well, you better bring your uniform’. I asked what he was talking about and he started to tell me about what was going on. I thought he was messing with me. I knew he was messing with me. I knew right away the seriousness after that, and that he wasn’t joking.”
Gordon has won five Brickyard 400s and said he felt comfortable after he ran laps at Indianapolis in General Motors’ racing simulator in North Carolina. He said the setups for this year’s race are more similar to the ones for the 2014 race, a race Gordon won. Last year’s Brickyard 400 was, well, not much of a success with a high-drag rules setup.
Gordon returned from a vacation in France on Tuesday and said he flew immediately from New York to Charlotte to visit Hendrick Motorsports. The team had already installed his steering wheel and seat from the final race of 2015 at Homestead. HMS had kept the equipment from what was supposed to be Gordon’s final Cup Series start, not realizing it’d be needed again. Hendrick said he and Gordon hadn’t had a discussion about being a substitute driver until this scenario.
“No we never talked about it because [Gordon] gave me a helmet when you got out of the car, so I thought [he was] done,” Hendrick said.
Gordon responded with a laugh.
“I should have given you the seat and the steering wheel,” he said.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
