NASCAR: Jeff Gordon’s Five Most Significant Wins
By Mike Hutton
No. 1: 2015 Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 at Martinsville
Significance: Earned berth in Championship Round in his final season, last career win
Ask any current NASCAR fan what they recall from the fall race at Martinsville this past season and many will tell you that’s where Matt Kenseth punted Joey Logano into the middle of next week in response for what Kenseth believed to be a similar move on Logano’s part at Kansas. That would be true, but it also set in motion perhaps the most emotionally charged of Gordon’s 93 Sprint Cup Series wins.
We’ll never know, but Logano was probably going to win that race. He had showed the same dominance as in earlier Chase races, was leading at the time and faced no terribly close competition. Gordon inherited the lead after the wreck, and held off a hard-charging, yet clean-driving, Jamie McMurray in the closing laps as darkness fell upon the paper clip.
The win would give Jeff a chance for a 5th Championship at Homestead in his final season. It was one of those “all is right in the world” moments. The emotion and celebration by the No. 24 team on the main straightaway after taking the checkered flag, coupled with the fact that hardly any spectators left and were taking it in with the team validates it as what this writer will remember as Jeff Gordon’s most meaningful career win.