Hendrick Motorsports icon Jeff Gordon scaled the peaks of NASCAR from behind the No. 24 car throughout his career. He won four Cup Series championships and 93 races amongst an endless list of other achievements. It is an interesting twist of fate that he ended up with this particular number on his car instead of the originally intended No. 46. His crew chief Ray Evernham shared the story back in 2015.
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When Hendrick Motorsports decided to expand for the 1993 season and take on Gordon, the number that was fixed was No. 46. “When I went to work (at Hendrick), the general manager at that time, Jim Johnson, said, ‘OK, your number is going to be 46,'” Evernham noted on Sirius XM Radio. “And I think even our tools were identified with No. 46.”
— ray evernham (@RayEvernham) January 6, 2015
What changed the winds away from this outcome was the Hollywood blockbuster “Days of Thunder.” The Tom Cruise starrer had featured a car with the No. 46 on its hood and Paramount Pictures held the rights to the number. This meant a horde of licensing hurdles. Gordon’s stepfather and business manager, John Bickford, learned of this and understood that it would also mean a reduction in marketing profit.
The crew then went through a list of numbers that were available from NASCAR and presented them in front of Rick Hendrick and Gordon. Bickford narrated these scenes to MRN, “What our thinking was, we wanted a number that had no real historical connection to anything. Certainly wasn’t going to have any licensing problems. The No. 24 sat there, and it had no significant relevance to the industry.”
How Jeff Gordon made the No. 24 the most identifiable number in NASCAR
The No. 24 had never been in the Cup Series victory lane before 1994. Beginning at Charlotte that year it reached the lane 93 times by the time Gordon chose to retire. Glorious parts of this achievement are three Daytona 500s, five Brickyard 400s, six Southern 500s, and three Coca-Cola 600s. Gordon is one of the only four drivers to conquer all four crown jewel races of the modern era.
After he called it quits in 2015, he handed the torch to William Byron. The youngster has picked up splintering speed since then and continues building the legacy. Gordon said when Byron won the 2024 Daytona 500, “It is 2024, and the No. 24 car is always going to be very, very special to me. But what I loved the most is seeing him make it his number and building that fan base not only — 24 fans have been around for a long time, but his own fans.”
