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Woulda, coulda, shoulda ...
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I know what it's like to go through a season and not win a race. It happened to me in 1993. I won my first Cup race in 1975 at Nashville and I won my 84th and final race in Darlington in 1992 in the Mountain Dew Southern 500. In that 18-year span I had won my championships and other than 1990 when I got busted up at Daytona and was hurt, I won at least one race per year during that span.
Winning was something I had always done and I never gave it a second thought. I was coming off a three-win season in 1992 with my own team and Western Auto as my sponsor. So I entered 1993 on a high note and it was just a given I was going to win that year.
This is where the "woulda, coulda, shoulda" comes from.
At the end of 1992 I decided I wanted to do my own engine program and no longer lease motors from Hendrick Motorsports. I brought everything in-house and boy it put us way behind the 8-ball. The other problem became that the engine combination we wanted to run wouldn't fit in a Banjo car, so we had to switch over to Laughlin cars. So there we were building all new cars and all new engines to start the 1993 season. That's the point in my car-owning career that looking back, I misjudged what an undertaking it was going to be. So 1993 goes along and the only thing I won was an ARCA race at the old Texas World Speedway. I was shocked that I didn't win a Cup race for the first time in 17 years, but I could clearly see the reason why. I rationalized that every athlete goes into a slump somewhere along the line and I would bounce back in 1994. I didn't worry too much more about it.
Well guess what, 1994 comes and goes and I don't win a race then either. I'll be honest, I started to panic a little bit.
Looking back today, I can clearly identify the problem. The problem was me. This is where I think Jeff Gordon and I have a little bit in common. You know I have folks asking me all the time what is wrong with Jeff Gordon. My answer? There is nothing wrong with Jeff Gordon.
But what's going on in Jeff's life is very similar to what we were going through at the time. Our oldest daughter, Jessica, was born in 1987 and then our other daughter Sarah was born in 1992. So by 1994, we have a 7-year-old and a 2-year-old. They needed and deserved my attention because next to marrying Stevie, they are the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.
You know what? Sure, they needed my attention but so did my 50-plus employees and my sponsor.
The other problem was that I was an absentee-owner. My race team was in Harrisburg, N.C. and we live in Franklin, Tenn., so I was torn between being at the shop and being at home with my girls. Oh yeah, you also have to factor in that I was the owner and the driver. So I was husband, father, owner and driver.
That's a lot of hats to wear in one day.
I am not too proud to say that I made mistakes. I still remember my sponsor, Western Auto, telling me one day that they never worried about my driving ability but they did worry about me carrying too much of a load as a owner. Naturally I disagreed with them, but obviously they were right.
My point is that my family became my primary focus and my team became secondary. I am not saying that's what's happening to Jeff because trust me, he can still wheel a car with the best of them. I just know that when you become a parent, it does change your focus a bit. When you get older, your priorities change and you start to think about the rest of your life.
So when people ask me what's wrong with Jeff Gordon, I still tell them that there is nothing wrong with him, he's just evolving and maturing and maybe his focus is changing to something even more precious than that race car.
Oh, by the way
One of the things I learned from my racing was never operate under the best-case scenario.
I learned that lesson painfully at times.
Economic fallout
It took me a long time to learn that you have to plan things based on worst-case scenario, not the best case. I was planning things out based on if I won the race, how much money I needed to pay my bills for the month etc. Guess what? That race car can let you down — cars crash, motors blow up, tires go flat at the worst possible time and so that big purse you planned on bringing home from winning the race to pay the bills quickly became a mere fraction of what you were hoping for.
My point is, I am afraid that's what we have done in our sport for a number of years now. We only wanted to see and plan for the best things that could happen for us and haven't really planned for the worst. It seems like some of these teams have fallen into that same trap with always assuming they could find a sponsor and always building a bigger shop and always hiring more people, etc. The reality is that there should have been some planning for some rainy days. Unfortunately I think we are facing some rainy days in our sport for a while.
Oh, by the way II
As people look at what's going on with the possible bailout of the auto industry by the federal government, I feel that maybe it's the government's regulations that has put the auto manufacturers in the shape they are in.
My concern is that if they give the car industry money, the government is going to be regulating them even more than they have before. I just never can get a warm fuzzy feeling when I think about the possibility that the government in Washington telling the auto makers how to build cars in Detroit.
How about we try something completely different? Why doesn't big oil buy the car companies? The oil companies are making billions of dollars in profits, so let them go to Detroit and bail out the car companies and not have the taxpayers do it. I mean come on, if it wasn't for the car companies, big oil wouldn't be raking in their billions. I would think they have a vested interest in the continued health of the auto industry.
Maybe big oil should get a dog in this fight because maybe it would be good for everybody?
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