Gimelstob returns as a ‘senior’
Thirty-eight-year old set to make debut on ATP Champions Tour.
DELRAY BEACH — It’s hard to believe Justin Gimelstob, who is all of 38 years old, will make his debut as a “senior” at the Delray Beach Open that begins today at Delray Beach Stadium & Tennis Center.
“It’s not hard to understand how I feel after being retired from competitive tennis for seven...eight years,” Gimelstob said. “I’m 38 chronologically but there’s been a little more wear and tear on my body.
“I know it doesn’t seem like I qualify as a senior for anything especially with athletes
stead, to be the champion, oh my gosh, I’d be celebrating for a month.”
Finally, collectively, if that were to happen, everyone who has ever followed this sport might come to appreciate the California Kid, too.
“When I came in, I always felt like I was an outsider,” Gordon said. “I had a lot of guys inside the garage that didn’t accept me and some fans that didn’t accept me in the sport in a lot of ways, but luckily my team did. They believed in me and then I went out and did the things that I did and it probably took about 1015 years before I felt like that respect was earned.
“When you’re racing with one of the all-time greats (Dale Earnhardt) and he’s chasing you instead of you chasing him, that earns a lot of respect. At the time, I probably didn’t understand that but years later, when his fans would come to me and say, ‘Listen, I was not a fan of yours. I was a fan of Dale’s, but I have a tremendous amount of respect for what you did on the race track because you’re beating my guy.’ It takes years and years for that to come full circle.”
There’s a touch of gray in his sideburns now, and a sense of responsibility for what he has come to represent as NASCAR’s third-winningest driver behind Petty (200 victories) and David Pearson (105). Gordon has 92 victories, including four from last season, and the next closest active driver, Jimmie Johnson, is 22 wins behind.
He started out looking too young and too small at 5-foot-8 to be a monster. What is scarier, though, than a driver who makes winning look so easy that no amount of booing or wishing or stomping on the stands in red-eyed rage can make him go away?
Gordon won 33 Sprint Cup races in the course of three seasons beginning in 1996. For the sake of comparison, Bill Elliott, one of the game’s all-time most popular drivers and a recent inductee to the NASCAR Hall of Fame, won 44 races but it took him nearly four decades to do it.
Defending Daytona 500 champion Dale Earnhardt Jr. talked Thursday of the first time he met Gordon. Dale Sr. did the honors, bringing the new star over to his son at some forgotten trackside and speaking NASCAR’s new truth.
“Dad was sort of showing Jeff around the track,” Junior said. “He told me that Jeff was going to be really good, that he had a lot of talent, something along those lines ... I kind of knew everything about him already but it was interesting for Dad to compliment him because Dad was such a fierce competitor and very rarely ever complimented any of the drivers he raced against.”
Well, the compliments are rolling in now, and the invitations for special farewell tributes at every track as well, but Gordon figures it would be a lot more fun just to grab trophies as going-away gifts.
“I’ve got a great team with a great opportunity to go win a lot of races and win this championship this year and I don’t want to take it for granted. I want to go out on top,” he said.
Gordon finished sixth in the Sprint Cup standings last year, and fourth at the 2014 Daytona 500. He’s still a force out here, and the No. 24 Chevrolet is still breathing fire. If he doesn’t make the final field of Chase contenders at Homestead, it will be a surprise to me.
Vegas
Delray Beach Open by The Venetian Las
Delray Beach Stadium & Tennis Center, 201 W. Atlantic Ave.
Friday-Feb. 22 (The ATP event begins Monday)
Today — 6 p.m., James Blake vs. Mark Philippoussis; 8 p.m., Brad Gilbert vs. Goran Ivanisevic; Saturday — noon, Justin Gimelstob vs. Mark Philippoussis; 2 p.m., Brad Gilbert vs. Emilio Sanchez; 6 p.m., Justin Gimelstob vs. Goran Ivanisevic; 8 p.m. James Blake vs Emilio Sanchez; Saturday — noon, Brad Gilbert vs. Mark Philippoussis; 12:30 pm, Justin Gimelstob vs. Emilio Sanchez; 2 p.m., James Blake vs. Goran Ivanisevic.
Kevin Anderson (South Africa), Dustin Brown (Germany), Juan Martin del Potro (Argentina, Ivan Dodig (Croatia), Alexandr Dolgopolov (Ukraine), Teymuraz Gabashvili (Russia), Peter Gojowczyk (Germany), Sam Groth (Australia), John Isner (USA), Malek Jaziri (Tunisia), Steve Johnson (USA), Ivo Karlovic (Croatia), Filip Krajinovic (Serbia), Mikhail Kukushkin (Kazakhstan), Lukas Lacko (Slovak Republic), Yen-Hsun Lu (Taiwan), Adrian Mannarino (France), Marinko Matosevic (Australia), Sam Querrey (USA), Igor Sijsling (Netherlands), Bernard Tomic (Australia), Viktor Troicki (Serbia), Donald Young (USA)
Tickets range in price and are available at yellowtennisball.com. For information call 561-330-6000, ext. 1.