By The Commish

I can never get through a Labor Day weekend without mourning the loss of the Southern 500 at Darlington. It was a special race-- NASCAR's first superspeedway race-and Darlington is the single toughest racetrack on the circuit. A win here, in the intense heat and humidity of the late Southern summer, where you can't open your mouth without inhaling a lungful of sand gnats, is something a racer can boast about forever. I a magic stretch, from 1995 to 1998, Jeff Gordon won this race four straight times. It's an achievement no other driver has ever equaled. And it makes September a very special month for Jeff Gordon fans to remember.

In 1995, the Darlington streak started unspectacularly. In a race filled with 12 cautions for 75 laps, Gordon spun out early but managed to rally as the team continued to improve the car. The DuPont Chevrolet acquired its "Darlington stripe" when he had to dodge the wrecking cars of Ricky Rudd, Jeff Burton, and Jeremy Mayfield. By no means was it a dominating performance; he passed John Andretti for the lead on lap 333 and managed to stretch his lead to 4.6 seconds. Ray Evernham called Gordon to pit road on a late caution, but Gordon realized that no one behind him was coming and managed to swerve back on track behind the pace car at the last minute. In a ten-lap shootout, he held off Dale Earnhardt and Rusty Wallace for the win on the way to his first Winston Cup championship.

Coming off a win at the spring race in 1996, Gordon should have been the big story at the Southern 500 again, but was upstaged by Dale Jarrett, who was eligible to become the second driver to win the Winston Million. Instead, Jarrett's Ford hit the outside wall on lap 46 after spinning in oil laid down by unsponsored Ed Berrier's car, a wreck that also collected Rusty Wallace and Ernie Irvan. Gordon, struggling with his car at the time, would say later that the wreck gave him new encouragement to keep running, and the Rainbow Warriors came through with timely adjustments to the car. Journeyman Hut Stricklin led by 10 seconds with 100 laps left, but Gordon eventually wore him down, taking the lead with 16 to go and finishing 5.6 seconds ahead of Stricklin and Mark Martin, the only other car on the lead lap. Jarrett's disappointment still took most of the media's attention, but Gordon made up considerable points ground on teammate Terry Labonte, once again showing the importance of winning this race to the points championship.

In 1997, Gordon was eligible for the Winston Million and all eyes were on him as he attacked what had become one of his favorite tracks. In interviews, Gordon repeatedly used the mantra that had led to his success: "You just have to race the racetrack and then hold them off at the end. The guy who can save his car for the end is the guy who wins here," he told reporters. The Rainbow Warriors were augmented that week by the presence of Acting Assistant Crew Chief Andrew Jackson, a 15 year-old boy from Fayetteville who needed a bone marrow transplant; the Hendrick drivers were all carrying stickers encouraging bone marrow donation.

The track itself would be different: with new grandstands built, the racetrack had been renumbered so that turns 1 and 2 became turns 3 and 4 and the start-finish line moved to what had been the backstretch. Many of the crews had posted memorials to Princess Diana, killed the day before. The race began in unsettling fashion, as Dale Earnhardt apparently blacked out as the race began, hit the wall in turn 1, and drove three laps unable to respond to his crew or find pit lane. Meanwhile, a crash on lap seven took out Bobby Hamilton, Kyle Petty, Rusty Wallace, Robby Gordon, and Todd Bodine. Gordon missed the fracas and worked his way up to third place by lap 25. The Rainbow Warriors moved him to first place after a pit stop of 18.2 seconds-described by Dr. Jerry Punch as "blazing fast."

As the race developed, Jeff Burton and Bill Elliott had the strongest cars; Gordon's crew struggled to find him more rear grip while Evernham worried about the threat of rain moving in. At lap 257, Gordon restarted in tenth and closed to second when a caution was thrown for raindrops with 75 to go. Gordon's team got him back out in the lead. The car still wouldn't turn, and Gordon was running so incredibly high in turn 1 to get the car to turn that Benny Parsons told the TV audience, "That kid is trying so hard to stay in front." But his commenting partner, Ned Jarrett, had already seen Burton starting to make a charge from fourth. And that's where the racing really became fierce. With 48 laps to go, Gordon grazed the wall just enough to bend the right-rear fender into the tire. A caution with 30 to go let the Rainbow Warriors pull it back out, but it was game on. Burton, who had dropped a straightaway's length behind Gordon and Dale Jarrett, chewed up the space with alarming ease. "When I saw Burton pass Jarrett (with three laps to go), I thought, "Oh, man, I'm in trouble.' I was hoping they'd race each other enough where I could pull away," Gordon said.

The last three laps were everything drama fans could ask for. Burton cleared Jarrett with three to go, and closed on Gordon. "I saw him coming, and as I came off the turn, I moved down 'cause he was making a run on me," Gordon said, "and he plowed into the back of me and almost lifted the wheels off the ground. My car kind of took off sideways. I don't think he was expecting that. It knocked him onto the apron."

Burton, for once, was not diplomatic in describing his response. "I'll be honest," he said, "I tried to knock the shit out of him when he hit me. I tried to put him in the wall, and I just missed him." The chunks of tire rubber that by now ringed the track affected Burton's handling, and in turn 1 of the lead lap, Gordon cleared Burton's car and took the lead for good. But Burton made one more try. "When we got to (Turns) 3 and 4, he cleared off his tires and made another run at me, and I nearly hit the wall again. I got lucky," Gordon said. "If he hadn't had that (tire) buildup and waited until maybe the last lap, I think he could have got me. I'm sure he's not happy 'cause I ran him real hard, but when it came down to that last lap and I had a shot at a million bucks and three Southern 500s in a row, watch out."

With the win, Gordon sealed the second and final Winston Million bonus from R.J. Reynolds. The following year, he would win another No Bull million by defeating Burton to take his fourth straight Southern 500 on one of the hottest Labor Day weekends in memory; Gordon estimated that he had sweated off fifteen pounds during the race. Though lacking the late-lap drama of 1997, the 1998 race was widely seen as the DuPont team's answer to Jack Roush's charges of tire-soaking made the previous week and cemented his legacy of Darlington domination.

Before the Southern 500 was discontinued in 2004 and the race moved first to November and then back to May, Gordon would win a fifth one as well as the 2007 running in the spring, making his total of seven wins at the track second only to David Pearson's ten. For his career, he has 15 top fives and 18 top tens at the Lady in Black. His Darlington mastery was best described by a young David Poole in 1998: "Believe that [Gordon's] success is fueled by all manner of illegal devices and substances if you please. But desire is the secret ingredient that rides with any champion, and it's certain that Jeff Gordon is soaked in that." Nowhere has that proven more true than at Darlington in September.

Copyright ©2007 Jeff Gordon Online. All rights reserved.