RELATED: Comparing Gordon to Favre, Ripken
LOUDON, N.H. -- Jeff Gordon is NASCAR's new Iron Man.
By competing in Sunday's Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, the four-time champion broke Ricky Rudd's long-standing record of consecutive Sprint Cup Series starts with his 789th straight race.
The streak started in 1992 with Gordon as a fresh-faced, mustachioed 20-year-old in the season finale at Atlanta Motor Speedway. He hasn't missed a day of work since.
"No, (going this long and not missing a race) is not anything that I really thought about a whole lot," Gordon said Friday at NHMS. "I think now, looking to see where I am and looking back on it I recognize my commitment. My commitment has been there for many years, long before I even got to the Cup series.
"You have to understand, if you are a sprint car racer you are racing 100 times a year. Coming into the Cup level and racing 30 times a year, now 38 times a year, and it's a lot more work that goes into 38 weeks than what went into 100 races in a sprint car. But, still, to me if there was a race and I was scheduled to do it then I was going to do everything I could to be healthy and to be focused and to give 100 percent."
To put Gordon's accomplishment into perspective, the Camping World Truck Series also celebrated a landmark milestone at the "Magic Mile" this weekend, with its 500th race -- 289 events less than the Hendrick Motorsports driver's number.
Over the course of his first 788 races, Gordon racked up 92 wins -- third most all-time -- meaning he's won nearly 12 percent of the races he's entered. He's won a race in all but four of his 23 seasons of full-time competition, and there's still time this year to slice that number down to three.
It's remarkable that in such a high risk sport, Gordon, retiring at season's end, was able to endure the unlikely and hit this mark -- especially given a few doubtful situations, even as recently as last season.
"Well when you have a stat like this ... what starts to happen is you go 'What were the close calls? What were the weekends that it almost didn't happen?,' " Gordon wondered. "Obviously, last year at Charlotte (when he nearly missed the Coca-Cola 600 with a back issue) was one that comes to mind. When I think of what I went through in 24 hours to make sure I could get in the car on Sunday ... I think that certainly stands out in my mind when I'm lying on a table and they are injecting big long needles into my back so that I could race on Sunday.
"When you look back on it you go, 'You know that's kind of crazy. Why did I do that? I probably didn't need to do that.' But I did because I wanted to be in the race car."
Assuming Gordon, 43, finishes out the season with no complications, the final tally will stand at 797 races. Fellow Cup champion and 43-year-old Matt Kenseth is the next closest -- he'll have 574 at season's end -- but the Joe Gibbs Racing driver would have to stick around another six-plus seasons just to match Gordon's mark.
"I was talking to Matt Kenseth about it, I think he is next in line, but he is several hundred behind me," Gordon said. "I don't know the full significance of this in today's more modern era versus, say, with Ricky. I certainly didn't go through what Ricky did. The things that he did to make it into a race make my needles in my back look like nothing.
"But I'm curious to see what happens with the more modern era of safer cars, safer race tracks and how that affects what drivers do in the future. Will they not race as long and they not get to it? Or will they blow this number out of the water and it won't even be significant? I don't know."
It's conceivable that a driver like 19-year-old Chase Elliott, his replacement in the No. 24 starting in 2016, could surpass Gordon eventually, but that's looking more than 22 years down the road.
For now, all we can do is stay in the moment and stand in awe of one of NASCAR's greatest modern competitors as he winds down his career with yet another historic accomplishment to put the finishing touches on what has been a Hall of Fame-worthy career.