Meaning this is his nineteenth full-time year in Cup.

Wait… wha?

I remember when he first started, in that memorable season-ending Atlanta race in 1992. I noticed him because of how different his car was painted than what was driven by everyone else, with the DuPont rainbow across the hood. After my once and always main man Alan Kulwicki died in April of 1993, my loyalties shifted to Gordon. I was there during his rise and reign when he and Ray Evernham were the Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus of their day. And through all the years after.

Times change, seasons pass. My fandom has been muted somewhat by both the passage of time and a growing role as a journalist, albeit more of the civilian type. There are no more grand explosions of unfettered joy when my driver wins, no snarling and gritting of teeth when misfortune befalls him. I do my best to view things calmly, semi-detached and in context of life’s big picture. It happens as you get older.

That all said, today there was definitely a feeling when Gordon took the checkered flag, then rolled into Victory Lane where his daughter Ella was none too enthused about being caught in the Gatorade shower from his crew.

It was the feeling one was watching a lion in the autumn of his years, a shade slower but still capable of inflicting damage.

Gordon is no longer the Gordon of the mid 1990s when he won three championships in four years and seemingly won at will, dominating from start to finish. Today he was more methodical, starting up front, never beating himself while those around him fell prey to various misfortunes, and then almost quietly assuming the lead, never looking back. It was a performance beautiful in its simplicity, one void of unnecessary exertion.

There was a quiet satisfaction in this win, a cause to smile and reflect. Gordon is now an elder statesman of NASCAR. He turns forty this year, and it’s doubtful he’ll drive more than a few more years before walking away. He won’t equal Richard Petty or Dale Earnhardt’s seven championships, and even the drive for five is questionable. That said, he will become NASCAR’s second most winning driver, most likely sometime this year. And today, the lion’s roar rang strong and proud.

And yes, I’m still a fan.

Robbie Loomis, back when he was Jeff Gordon's crew chief.

Speaking of looney tunes, about last Sunday…

One of the fundamental cliches in sports is “don’t beat yourself.” Running parallel to this is the axiom about how if your opponent seems bound and determined to beat themselves, by all means let them. Regardless of the sport involved, both of these factoids ring true.

That said, in auto racing the latter tidbit is oft imperiled by the minor detail of how drivers beating themselves usually invite their fellow drivers along for the ride. Which usually ends where the wall begins. Drivers who are bound and determined to beat themselves by beating their car into an unwinnable condition need something, or to be more precise someone, against whom they can pulverize their paycheck. Almost invariably it’s a situation where aggression and/or temper tell common sense to get in, sit down, shut up and hang on. Why? Because it’s on. Never mind it puts the possibility of winning, or more often than not so much as finishing, firmly in the “off” position.

Such was the case at Infineon, where Juan Pablo Montoya and Jeff Gordon done did themselves and everyone else wrong by driving like everyone else on the track would be better served through trying things off-road style. Let’s focus on Gordon, since he was the one who invoked the greatest amount of wrath among his fellow competitors, many of whom were of the correctly stated position that they had no dog in this fight so why are you turning my car into a mangy mutt.

Being an unashamed and unabashed Gordon fan, it’s more than a bit painful watching a four-time champion run a course he used to have in his back pocket like his sole driving experience was Tuck and Roll’s Drive’Em Buggies. He was out of control, and all the mea culpas issued after the race don’t atone for the fact Gordon would have been far better off letting Ella drive this past Sunday.

So what was the deal?

Earlier this year, in an interview (will link to it if I can find it) Ray Evernham, he who was Chad Knaus to Gordon’s Jimmie Johnson before Knaus and Johnson were… well, Knaus and Johnson, made the comment, in reference to Gordon, that he suspected part of the reason why the drive for five has been stuck in-between gears since 2001 is the lack of a crew chief willing to talk to Gordon during the race in something other than reverent hushed tones. Even the greatest of drivers need a voice at the other end of the radio reminding them of the basics: watch your speed on pit road, don’t spin your tires on the restart and while you’re at it don’t hit the guy in front of you either. That, and when called for the occasional tongue-lashing regardless of cost. Lance McGrew temporarily entered the witness protection program after telling Dale Earnhardt Jr. to not lay down on him at Bristol earlier this year, but the message served its purpose.

Ever since Robbie Loomis’ outside distractions (illness in the family) started him on the downward spiral in terms of effectiveness as a crew chief, Gordon hasn’t had that kind of voice in his ear. Steve Letarte has enough problems hitting the setup at most races. Not exactly dealing from a position of strength when it comes time to reel in his driver. Which, even when the car is running well, he either will not or cannot do.

So what to do?

Pleasant dreams about Evernham wanting back in the game sufficiently to where he and GEM are able to work out a release from his contract with them and put him back atop the #24 pit box aside, Letarte needs to borrow a can or two of AMP from his teammate and tell Gordon to junk the funk when he gets in one of his moods. Gordon is too young to have lost any of his driving ability. What he does need to lose is a penchant for antics such as what we saw this past Sunday at Infineon. Fast. Otherwise, going fast will remain elusive. Someone doing you wrong doesn’t mean you can do it wrong. If you’re hoping to get it right, that is.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

Life’s juxtapositions can create quite bizarre scenarios. Such was the case last Thursday morning.

There I was, heading down south to Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California for my first time as an accredited media member covering NASCAR. Me. Diecast Dude. Accredited. Whodathunk.

Excited? Most definitely. Nervous? You betcha. Determined to do my absolute best? Absolutely. I had dreamt of, prayed for this opportunity. Living the dream? No way to know. Pursuing the dream to see where it may lead? Yes.

Then my brother called.

Our aunt was dead.

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

My brother had taken the lead in tending to our aunt since she had become unable to take care of herself last year. Dementia had set in, robbing her of her dignity even as she was mercifully unaware her mind was going. Now she was gone in body as well.

Throughout, my brother had demonstrated strength by every right he shouldn’t have. Wracked by diabetic neuropathy and the onset of MS, nevertheless he did the work and then some needed. His faith in Christ empowered him. It encouraged me. My brother in every sense of the world; in blood, washed by the Blood, fellow right wing outlaw.

If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

I already had much on my mind heading into the weekend. Now I had even more alongside what had been laid on my heart and soul. Turning back and returning home wasn’t an option. The opportunity laid out before me had to be seized and seized now. I would need to postpone my grief. There were no other options.

I’ve occasionally noted for my own edification that for me, Diecast Dude is more than an oddball pen name. It’s an aspect of my persona. I haven’t been Diecast Dude very often for quite a while. Too busy with other things. Arguably more important ones, such as the book. Still, I rather missed mixing entertainment plus information centered around NASCAR along with sardonic combativeness and digressions into Spirit-desiring sentimentality. Now I needed to be that like never before.

I also needed my right hand to hold up under the ton of typing that awaited as I pounded out blog posts and tweets about the weekends events. Otherwise, I’d be all thumbs. As in writing everything on my iPhone, tapping away with my thumbs since that was the only way to avoid the sharp pains stabbing their way along my fingers. Which is slow going indeed.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

I logged on to Twitter and mentioned my aunt passing away. A few people responded with consolatory messages. To each of you, thank you. To those on Twitter who follow me but missed it because they weren’t logged in at the time, I know you would have said something.

To those on Twitter who follow me but either missed it or ignored it because they were too busy at CPAC…

It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Well, it’s on me to forgive you.

It’s also on me to say, “Hey. What are you doing?” There’s nothing that can be done about what happened. Yeah, it hurt, but it’s over and gone.

What about the next time, though? What about the next person who makes public mention of loss? Will you treat that person the same way you treated me, so absorbed in yourself and whatever you’re doing at the moment you can’t take a moment to write a simple ‘I’m sorry’?

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

I had to put all that aside. Friday morning, there I was at the race track, press credentials and garage pass dangling from my neck in an improvised holder attached to a temporary lanyard. I got a real one at the end of the day. But back where I was: there I was, walking into the media center looking at people who before that moment were merely names on bylines. Now I was one of them.

As the weekend unfolded, while there were moments of pure fanboy fantasy (“Jeff. Gordon. Is. Sitting. Three. Feet. Away. From. Me. JEFF!!! GORDON!!!”) for the most part my time was spent doing what I’d come to do: observe, report, interact with other journalists and online with my fellow fans. Which I did as best I could. The hand pain delayed some writing, but it was all completed.

I met a few journalists, some of whom I’d had different levels of contact with online. They were all polite, some far above. Dustin Long is a true gentleman in every sense of the word. Nicole Manske helped me get in close enough to Jimmie Johnson when he was doing a brief presser behind his trailer in a noisy pit area so I could record the conversation. was gracious and friendly during Sunday’s race when we sat next to each other in the press box. Didn’t do as much one on one with drivers or crew chiefs as I would have liked, but I was able to find Robby Gordon and get a scoop.

Fundamental truth of the matter was even with the turbulence that enveloped me, I was savoring the experience of being where I had longed to be for years and finding it did not disappoint. Moments such as this are scarce commodities for most of us. Now I was in the midst of one. Nothing could steal my joy. The sorrows would be there to be dealt with upon my return. This was a time to celebrate.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

During the weekend, something that had been percolating since 2008 came to full brew. Racing news for the thinking unimpaired has returned. I’ve teamed up with my main man Bram Hume at Backstretch Motorsports. Our goal? Beside total world domination, it’s to be THE go-to site for racing news, information and opinion. A major task to be sure, and one that will involve much work. But if I want to pursue this dream, there is no option to doing the work. Bring it on.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

The weekend, of course, had to end. After the frenetic fun of Friday’s press conferences, the Nationwide race on Saturday during which I politely informed one and all on Twitter I’d be more than happy to repeat my defense of Danica Patrick in person, and Sunday’s torrent of tweeting during the race it was over. Time to pack up and head home to office demands and deadlines.

And funeral arrangements.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part,

None of us have a complete grasp on what’s going on, or why. We know as best we can the moment we’re in. But even that knowledge is extremely limited. Everything else may as well be lollipop dreams in a cotton candy sky. We are totally, wholly, utterly reliant on God.

Whether we know it or not.

but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.

I don’t know why everything shook out the way it did this past weekend. I don’t know why this was the appointed time for my aunt to go to heaven, which is where I believe she is for she was a believer in Christ. I don’t know why a beloved online acquaintance went to the hospital Friday. I don’t know why the sister of my wife’s best friend, someone we knew, finally finished drinking herself to death Sunday. I don’t know why all this took place even as I was fulfilling a dream and started work toward making it my daily reality. I don’t know why one day I was in Disneyland and the next was at a funeral home.

I don’t know.

I know God knows, though.

That’s good enough.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

In the days of my youth I was a voracious reader, often reading the same book several times over. One of these was The Runaway Robot by Lester Del Rey. In it, the referred to runaway robot recalls a line he either heard or read once: ‘After a taste of freedom, captivity is no longer the same.’ While referring to my day job as captivity is ludicrous melodramatic bunk, now that I’ve sampled being a full-time NASCAR writer… ‘nuff said.

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

It’s ironic that what is most feared in life, namely its conclusion, is in fact our greatest liberator. No one in their right mind wishes to hasten their demise. Yet in death not only are we promised eternity with Christ, we are promised the answers we could never know nor understand during our tenure on this planet. What’s more, we are promised the full embrace of Christ’s love for us.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

There was magic and loss this past weekend. I could have done without the latter. The former, though… the former made the latter a little easier to understand.

“Darndest thing I’ve ever seen,” one doctor reported.  “All of a sudden, the ER was crammed full of people dragged in their by their wife or husband or whoever.  And they all were suffering from the exact same symptoms.  Weirder than weird.”

The symptoms include:

• Uncontrollable smiling;
• Unexplainable mirth;
• Saying nice things about gophers.

“I’m worried sick,” said one husband who didn’t want to give her name.  “Haven’t seen the wife act like this since our daughter dumped that boyfriend of hers with the full body tattoo and pierced everything.  One minute she was fine, next minute she’s dancing around the living room.  With the curtains open!  I can only imagine what the neighbors were thinking.”

There is some speculation the disease may have come over from Europe, specifically France.  “I’m of the opinion there is definitely some kind of eating disorder involved,” one doctor commented.  “Why else would you have so many people suddenly saying how much they love ‘le tart?’  Who eats tarts in the afternoon?”

Other common statements by those afflicted are puzzling experts.  “These people couldn’t all possibly have graduated from the University of Hawaii, yet they go on and on about ‘rainbow warriors.’  And to a one they’re all talking about joining the National Guard!  Haven’t seen this much unexplainable mass behavior since the last Presidential election.”

The most baffling aspect of “the 24 virus” is how in unison those displaying its symptoms suddenly break out in song:

[youtube BgkHWE92UMU nolink]

“It could be worse,” one doctor sighed.  “At least it isn’t the 88 pandemic.”

The quote that most grabbed my attention is (emphasis mine):

NS: Have you shut the door on team ownership or on being a crew chief again?

Evernham: I have no desire to own a team again. I just have no desire to own a team. As far as crew-chiefing, I was Jeff Gordon’s crew chief. I will never be anybody else’s crew chief. Would I like to go and help Steve Letarte (Gordon’s current crew chief) in some way to help Jeff Gordon get back to winning races and winning a championship? I think Jeff can win championships. I think Steve is a great crew chief. That would probably be the only two guys who would get me back to the track to work on a race car.

Now, a quote from a recent most excellent interview by Bram of Backstretch Motorsports (get well, will ya?) of Jack Roush:

DO YOU THINK JEFF GORDON’S WINLESS SEASON HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH A MENTAL BLOCK OR HIGH FRUSTRATION LEVEL WITH THIS CAR? “I know a little bit about Jeff Gordon in terms of the feedback that I’ve gotten from Mark Martin and from the other people that have been around him and he doesn’t like a loose race car. This car has got to be pretty darn loose to be able to have the speed in it, so if the first thing you do is tighten the car up and you say, ‘Now we’re going to try and make it fast,’ you’ve probably created a scenario for yourself where the car won’t have the speed. I’m not being critical of Jeff, but I think that’s what’s going on. In my field of drivers, I’ve got drivers that have got a preference for a car that’s looser than other drivers. The drivers that have a preference for the looser cars are the ones that have stood supreme, and the ones that have an aversion to that have struggled.”

You can no doubt see where this one’s headed.

I suspect Evernham is being publicly kind about Letarte.  Have you ever heard a current or former crew chief talk down another crew chief?  Never happens.  Ever.

Granted, Letarte is in a tough spot.  The car’s nature goes against Gordon’s driving style.  It sounds simple enough to snark, “Well, if he’s as great a driver as you say he is why doesn’t he change what he’s doing to match the new car?”  Oh, that it was that simple.  You take something you’ve done most every day for seventeen years — remember Gordon’s entry into NASCAR was in the then-Busch series in 1990 — and then have what ostensibly is the same deal come your way when in reality everything you’re used to being a certain way is no longer applicable.

That said, Letarte is no Chad Knaus, possessing the innate knack of making the exact right adjustment at the exact right time.  When you have a car which at its core is ill-suited for your driver, you have zero margin for error.  You have to be spot on every single time.  Letarte isn’t that good.

Evernham was.

Could he be again?

After the wringer he’s been through, sitting atop Jeff Gordon’s pit box would be paid rest and relaxation for Evernham.  Although the faithful fan base such as yours truly still believe, no one expects Gordon to win another championship.  Other drivers are younger and hungrier; he’s too focused on Ingrid (can you blame him?) and Ella; he’s been making ever louder noises about walking away soon.  The expectations are lower.  Even with the phenomenal success Gordon and Evernham enjoyed together, should they team up once more the talk will be how everything has changed and their time has passed.  In short, Gordon and Evernham would have everyone right where they want them: not paying attention as their focus is on Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch.

Granted, it’s all conjecture and idle speculation bordering on even more idle wishing.  Still, it’s enough to make this #24 fan quietly smile.  After last season, going into this season I need all the smiles I can get.