Robby Gordon:
Off-Road, On-Road Racer ExtraordinaireGordon began racing motocross at the age of 7. By the time he was 15, he was winning major events. In 1985, his dad, Bob, convinced him to switch to off-road racing. Gordon won the first off-road race he entered, the Nevada 500, beating his dad who finished Second. Gordon went on to win six off-road championships.
In 1990, he moved from dirt to asphalt, driving an IMSA GTO Mercury Cougar for the Jack Roush Racing team. He won three Rolex Daytona 24-Hour races in a row. In 1992, he captured his first-ever Trans-Am race, which he entered at Long Beach, winning the pole and the race. That same year, he drove a Lola for Chip Ganassi Racing in the PPG IndyCar Series. Gordon went on to compete in the PPG IndyCar Series full-time, making his NASCAR debut with the Kranefuss/Haas team. He also competed in the NASCAR Super Truck debut race at Bakersfield. His first taste of the Winston Cup came in 1991 when raced for Junie Dunlavey in the Daytona 500, and he followed that up by driving for the No. 28 Ford of Robert Yates at Talladega. He nearly won the Indy 500 in 1999, only to run out of gas on the last lap. Later, he formed his own NASCAR Winston Cup team for the 2000 season. Then in 2001, he signed with Richard Childress (RCR), when he drove the No. 31 Lowe's Chevrolet.
During the 2002 and 2003 Memorial Day weekends, Gordon transformed into an Ironman, competing in the Indy 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, then flying by corporate jet and helicopter to the Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, North Carolina, just in time to get strapped into his No. 31 Cingular Wireless Monte Carlo for NASCAR's Winston Cup Coca-Cola 600. That's 1,100 miles of racing in one day. In 2002, Gordon finished Eighth in the Indy 500 and Sixteenth in the Coca-Cola 600. Last year, Gordon's Indy 500 Honda-powered Dallara finished Twenty-seventh after dropping out on Lap 169 with gearbox problems. Changing from his Indy driver's uniform into his Cingular Wireless threads, he arrived at Lowe's Motor Speedway by helicopter, and Gordon was greeted to a standing ovation by the capacity crowd. Because he missed the mandatory driver's meeting earlier, Gordon had to start the race last. After driving tough all race, Gordon finished Seventeenth in the Coca-Cola 600.
Some consider Gordon to be the most versatile race driver on the planet.