From behind the wheel to behind the scenes
During coverage of practice Friday for the Toyota/ Save Mart 350, the Fox NASCAR team got into a discussion of “technical” corners on the Sonoma Raceway road course.
“It’s really about getting into a brake zone without maximizing the brake pressure,” one analyst said. “The grip level is so low here. It’s about setting the car into the corner, getting to the apex and trying to get the car pointed to get off the exit.”
Nobody knows Sonoma’s corners, the devilish hairpins and blind ( uphill) twists, like that analyst. Jeff Gordon won there a record five times.
The four- time NASCAR Cup Series champion is finishing his third year with Fox, which after Sunday’s race gives way to NBC for the second
half of the season.
During the Friday broadcast, he joked with partners Mike Joy and Darrell Waltrip about Saturday’s schedule.
“I know where I’ll be at 5 a. m. — watching Belgium ( play Tunisia) in the World Cup,” he said. His wife, Ingrid Vandebosch, is a former model from Belgium. “They have a great team this year.”
Gordon, 46, was born in Vallejo but moved to Indiana after his freshman year of high school. He said he really doesn’t miss racing nearly three years after retiring from the full- time grind.
“When I see a great battle happening, maybe for a win or for position, those are moments that you can’t replace,” he said. “But for the most part, I don’t miss it.”
He has joked in the booth about coming out of retirement to drive against the 71- year- old Waltrip in a NASCAR Truck Series race at Virginia’s Martinsville Speedway. Dale Earnhardt Jr., another retiree, has said he’d like a piece of that action.
In the interview, Gordon said it might really happen. “That’s one race I feel I could be fairly competitive,” he said.
He’s gotten more comfortable in the booth each year, he said, although having somebody talking in your earpiece while you’re in mid- conversation is “never natural.”
The toughest predicament is trying to explain something or expressing an opinion and suddenly he’s told they’re about to go to a commercial break. “In mid- thought you’re having to rush yourself and figure out how to close it off. That’s when you get nervous, and it gets tough.”
What’s not tough is more time with his family. As a driver, he said, he was never able to take more than a week’s vacation. Now he and his wife can take daughter Ella, 11, and son Leo, 7, on extended summer trips — Indonesia last year, the Greek islands this year.
Inducted to the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America earlier this year ( and a first- ballot pick for the NASCAR Hall of Fame), Gordon still keeps busy making personal appearances and working as an executive for Hendrick Motorsports — which can make it tough to maintain objectivity when it comes to Hendrick teams.
“That’s one of the things you have to balance out when you’re working with Fox,” he said. “I want to be honest to the viewers with what I see and critique it honestly, and I do. But if it’s something that goes deeper than that ( concerning a Hendrick team), maybe Darrell or Mike might cover or pick up a little bit more for me.
“I try to be as nonbiased when I’m in the booth as possible. All of us have relationships, whether it’s the pit reporters or those of us in the broadcast booth. You may have a team that you favor slightly because you work for them or have in the past.”
Those relationships are important because that’s where a lot of inside information comes from, he said.
“I try to balance out the knowledge that I get from being an owner, but if I see an error I need to critique, then I do it.”
The travails of Jimmie Johnson and his No. 48 car for Hendrick have “been a big story for us,” Gordon said.
A seven- time series champion, Johnson is in 12th place this year and is without a win and has just two top- five finishes. It’s a mystifying development, he said, because Johnson, crew chief Chad Knaus and the organization have proved themselves repeatedly in the past.
“You have to analyze it,” he said. “No matter what I’m analyzing, I try not to ever let it cut deep and make it personal.”