Jeff Gordon, NASCAR's onetime boy wonder, is now its elder statesman

Tinges of gray line the hair now. The jawline’s a touch softer, which happens when you’re edging up on 50. But the knowing glint in the eyes is still there, and so’s the voice, still a register higher than you’d expect out of a grease-stained race-car driver. Listen around the edges, and you can still hear the competitiveness, the desire to win, the need to just race, even after all these years.

He’s been out of a car for a couple seasons now, but Jeff Gordon’s as engaged in NASCAR as he’s ever been. And for a sport that could use a bit — or a lot — of salvation, that’s very good news indeed.

These are good days for Gordon. First, he — along with the whole sport — is preparing for another Daytona 500, another edition of the Great American Race, another Florida siesta in the middle of winter, and that’s enough to fire up anyone. Once again, he’ll be behind the mic, calling the race on Sunday for Fox Sports, and once again he expects to feel the old feelings that well up when a new season rolls around.

“There’s so much anticipation and tension,” Gordon says of the Daytona 500. “It’s a little different for me now. But I remember every race day morning, wondering what lap the wreck was going to happen on. I always felt about 85 percent of the race was in our control, but it was an unnerving feeling. I can’t believe I won three of these things.”

Gordon’s also taking a tour through his history thanks to a couple of well-timed events: his induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame earlier this month, and the new documentary “Unrivaled,” now airing on FS1, a breakdown of his ongoing rivalry with Dale Earnhardt.

You know the broad outlines of the Gordon story — the boyish-faced open-wheel Mozart, from California by way of Indiana, who debuted in Richard Petty’s final race and went on to become the unlikeliest challenger to the reign of Saint Dale. He endured everything from Earnhardt’s jabs to snide dismissal of his non-Southern roots to flat-out wicked fan abuse, handling it all the same way he handled everyone on the track: by outrunning it.

He won four championships and 93 Cup-level races, behind only Petty and David Pearson on NASCAR’s all-time wins list. He pioneered the idea of NASCAR driver as national celebrity, opening up the sport to the entire country and vaulting NASCAR beyond its Southern roots. And when the time came for him to enter NASCAR’s Hall of Fame, he rolled right in at green-flag speed.

But from another angle, Gordon’s induction into the Hall of Fame, and the look back at the glory days with Earnhardt, come off as an elegy for a bygone time, an era that’s gone and isn’t coming back. The ‘90s were an amazing era for racing, but why haven’t we had anything rise up to match them?

Gordon’s not blind to what’s happened to the sport around him. He sees the empty grandstands, he knows the declining ratings numbers, he’s watched big-name sponsors pack up and leave the track.

Fair or not, NASCAR lives and dies with its drivers. Track amenities, glittery TV packages, even (ahem) big-name announcers don’t much matter if there’s not that connection between fans and the racers driving 200 miles an hour on the track.

“There have always been characters, there have always been rivalries in NASCAR,” Gordon says. “I think we sometimes miss that today. It’s so professional because there’s so much on the line for these drivers.”

There’s a tricky balance involved in authenticity, though. “You can’t fake a personality,” Gordon says. “Fans can see right through that.”

Gordon knows what he’s talking about; he once sported a mustache early in his career, but rather than making him look like an Earnhardt-style badass, it left him looking like a kid wearing a disguise to try to buy beer. Once he embraced his not-Dale status — and once he started beating Earnhardt on a regular basis — the respect came flowing in.

And there’s another part to the “so much on the line” component Gordon mentioned above: the enormous role of the sponsors. A sponsor unhappy with the way a driver shows emotion — a sponsor unhappy with having its logo on a driver who’s getting in another driver’s face, for instance — might just be a sponsor not long for NASCAR.

“It’s not just a driver’s own personality on the line, it’s a whole lot of employees,” Gordon says. “One wrong move can take [the sponsor] off the car, out of the sport. You can’t afford to lose them, so I’m sure that’s in the back of some drivers’ minds when they think about how to show emotions.”

The sponsors’ role, to Gordon’s mind, is a key factor in how NASCAR meets its next 60 years. Dependency on any one element — especially one with economic power that’s out of your direct control, like sponsorship — is a sandy foundation to build on. “Sponsors can’t be your primary source of funding,” Gordon says. “There has to be a solution where, on the financial side, you cut costs and get more [revenue] from tracks, television, and attendance. You can keep building that fanbase with direct connection to the fans.”

NASCAR’s going to need visionary leadership to get it past this current dry stretch, and Gordon qualifies on that score. Few in NASCAR possess the stature — the victories, the insight, the respect — that Gordon commands, both in the garage and in the suites. He’s already being groomed to take over Hendrick Motorsports once Rick Hendrick retires, and from that perch — combined with the knowledge of what it’s like behind the wheel — Gordon stands to become one of the strongest voices in the sport.

The boy wonder has become the elder statesman, the open-wheel outsider has become the ultimate stock-car insider. It’d be a hell of a thing if the guy who saved NASCAR once ends up doing it again.

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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.

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