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In fairly short order, Jeff Gordon was able to laugh about his exchange of post-race words with Ryan Newman last weekend at Dover International Speedway. Four days after the mild flare-up and mending of fences between the former foes, Gordon was still finding amusement about how it unfolded.
Gordon sat atop a Hendrick Motorsports pit box last Sunday, watching Chase Elliott — his successor in the No. 24 Chevrolet — vying with Kyle Busch for his first victory in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. Newman fought hard to stay on the lead lap in the late stages, impeding Elliott’s progress; Busch scooted by on the next-to-last lap for his second straight win.
Gordon’s chance encounter with Newman on pit road was caught by television cameras after the Apache Warrior 400. The two patched things up moments later at the track, and Gordon remained jocular when discussing their interactions at Hendrick’s 2018 Daytona 500 paint scheme reveal Thursday night.
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“What’s interesting about that is that you get caught up in your own little bubble of what’s going — and I’m sitting on top of that 24 box, seeing the race unfold the way it did, and obviously a lot of disappointment — and you get caught up in that emotion,” Gordon said. “I’ve raced with Ryan Newman for many years and he’s a hard guy to pass, so I was a little frustrated there.
“But after he and I had our little exchange and just the talk that we had even shortly after that, he had a lot on the line and he was doing everything that he needed to do to try to make it to the next round. So we laughed about it. It’s all good.”
Gordon hung up his helmet as a full-time driver after the 2015 season, transitioning to the FOX Sports booth as an analyst. His competitive spirit clearly still remains, but the four-time series champion said he may reconsider his post-race level of engagement if a similar situation arises in the future.
“You know, I’ve been known to bring a little drama to the sport,” Gordon said with another hearty chuckle. “I prefer the drivers do that themselves on the track. I probably from now on will just walk by a situation. I thought that’s what I was doing, but didn’t work out that way.”