In February of 1993, a 22-year-old Jeff Gordon burst out of the gates in the Daytona 500 driving the #24 Hendrick Motorsports car. Every team owner, driver, and analyst in the sport was left wondering about the sanity of Rick Hendrick for trusting an inexperienced youngster with a ride in the pinnacle of motorsports. 41 races later, they were all proven wrong beyond question.
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The gone by Wednesday, May 29, marked the 30th anniversary of Gordon’s first Cup Series victory. It was the first of the 93 wins that would follow and it came in the 1994 Coca-Cola 600 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Recalling the special moment, Gordon says, “Throughout my career, it was one of my favorite tracks. To get the win there was very special and emotional.”
Entering the race, he had two top-5 finishes and three top-10 finishes in the season which were followed by a bad streak of five finishes outside the top-20. Signs of him turning the situation around showed early on as he grabbed pole position in qualifying. He battled with drivers including Rusty Wallace and Geoff Bodine throughout the race and ended up edging past them via a late-race strategy.
Wallace pitted in Lap 375 of the 400-lap race and elected to have all four tires changed. Bodine did the same in Lap 379. Gordon and crew chief Ray Evernham elected to do something completely out of the box and pitted in Lap 381 to change only the two right-side tires. As berserk, as the move seemed to onlookers, it ended up catapulting Gordon to the victory lane 3.91 seconds ahead of Wallace.
Emotions ruled Jeff Gordon after the 1994 Coca-Cola 600 victory
Unable to control his tears going past the checkered flag, Gordon shouted on the radio, “Man, I love you guys! Thank you, Ray Evernham! You’re an awesome crew chief, man! Oh, god! I love you guys!” To make things more special, he got a congratulatory thumbs up from the legendary Dale Earnhardt Sr. as he crossed the finish line.
Evernham told the Charlotte Observer in 2019 about that particular moment, “Your first win is big. It’s like you get hit with a fire hose of emotion because … there’s a part of you — no matter how hard you’re working or how good you are – that thinks it may never happen.” The duo went on to capture three Cup Series championships together in four years. Gordon would add one more to the tally in 2001.
