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From time to time we see pieces that ask about the extensive booing of Jeff Gordon. About a year ago Stock Car Racing did a cover story asking why fans boo Jeff Gordon. Unfortuneately, the piece was little more than a rather lachrymose alibi, basically saying that Gordon is so wonderful and talented and magnicicent that fans don't believe he's human.

The enmity of fans toward Gordon is a legitimate issue to ponder, for it says much about the sport and its participants.

Press examination of drivers tends to be repetitous, in that one very rarely finds any kind of unflattering angle of a driver. The only exceptions I've ever seen were Winston Cup Scene's remarkable 1991 cover story "The Case Against Ernie Irvan," National Speed Sport News' examination of the 1994 Busch Series 300 at Atlanta - there Shawna Robinson crashed (for about the 20th time in her short BGN career to that point) from the pole on the opening lap after Mike Wallace passed her, and Wallace was pounded viciously and wrongly for it - and some rather silly invective directed at Buckshot Jones in the past few seasons.

Yet a strong case exists for fan disrespect of Jeff Gordon. It is presented below.

Gordon started in sprints and midgets. He first gained fame on ESPN's Saturday Night Thunder series. The TV exposure didn't show Gordon to be much different in talent from USAC regulars like Jim Keeker, Bob Cicconi, Mike Streicher, Stan Fox, Steve Butler, Robbie Stanley, et al, but it caught the attention of Ford SVO chief Michael Kranefuss. When Gordon enrolled in Buck Baker's driving school, Kranefuss arrnaged for him to drive Ford's works car in the Busch Series, Bill Davis' Carolina Ford Dealers T-bird.

Gordon thus became the first BGN rookie to have gotton his ride from the influence of a factory boss, something other BGN drivers had not had.

Gordon's 1991 debut season was forgettable, except for quite a bit of wrecked racecars - one highlight was a pit collision with Busch regular Bobby Labonte at New Hampshire in July that brought out a memorable tirade from Bob Labonte. But at Atlanta in 1992, Gordon dodged a series of wrecks (one of which injured Ernie Irvan and thus kept him out of the next day's Winston Cup 500) and took the victory. On the basis of this one race, car owner Rick Hendrick inquired as to Gordon's contract status, then poached him. RACER Magazine noted at the time that Hendrick's poaching act was both unheard of in American racing and an act of betrayal on Gordon's part. The magazine also warned that a salary war the sport could ill-afford might ensue - a warning that has proven prescient.

The political overtones of the poaching were surprisingly lost. Ford at the time was crushing GM under its toes in Winston Cup, and snatching up the driver Ford SVO had invested a good deal in was an obvious act of "sabotage." Hendrick carried the political message further when he did something no car owner had ever done with a rookie before - he gave the best cars, best engines, and full factory backing to the rookie. "This is my Franchise," Hendrick announced at Daytona during Speedweeks 1993. He made sure of that from the start of Speedweeks. Not since Dale Earnhardt in 1979 - in Rod Osterlund's unsponsored, self-funded car, one should note - had a rookie actually fought for the win at Daytona. Yet Gordon's Hendrick-works car did just that.

And so it went. Gordon almost won the ensuing Atlanta 500 and posted seconds at Charlotte and Michigan. All the while fellow rookies Bobby Labonte and Kenny Wallace, drivers who had regularly bested Gordon in BGN, now driving racecars lacking a quarter of the engineering and sponsorship of Gordon, were enduring a nightmarish debut season. They were learning, paying their dues, proving in lesser equipment that they had potential.

A side story of Gordon's 1993 season was his relationship with the reigning Miss Winston. Brooke Sealey was forbidden by Winston from having a relationship with any driver, a rule the series sponsor has had going forever. She and Jeff nevertheless dated all season. The rumor has circulated that Winston and NASCAR knew of this situation and encouraged it; certainly fellow drivers knew or at least suspected such, as Brooke herself told Circle Track magazine in 1995; she noted that Kyle Petty once burst in on Gordon and demanded to know, "Whose wife are you dating?"

Gordon finally won a race, at the 1994 World 600. He won again in the inaugural Brickyard 400. What that race and others made abundantly clear was that Gordon's car was the recipient of a lot more in the way of engineering help from GM than anyone else. It showed in Gordon's breakthrough title season of 1995 and really showed in 1996, when Gordon virtually single-handedly won the manufacturer title for Chevy, 1997, when he accounted for all but three of GM"s wins, and 1998, when he single-handedly won the manufacturer title for Chevy.

That favoritism was what was accounting for Gordon's success was finally revealed in print in June of 1997, when the Winston-Salem Journal did a piece on GM computer-engineering in NASCAR. The piece made clear that Gordon was essentially the sole recipient of GM engineering backing - a NASCAR official pointedly noted, "What I don't understand is why Earnhardt's guys don't have access to it," and crew chief Todd Parrott noted that Gordon's team had more engineers than any other in the sport. The engineering gap between Gordon and the rest of GM's fleet finally saw the formation of RAD, an alliance of RCR Enterprises, Dale Earnhardt Inc., and Andy Petree Racing, formed because of GM neglect. Such an alliance is identical to the engineering cooperative Pontiac's teams have had since 1994, when GM all but killed Pontiac by starving it of engineering.

Favoritism toward Gordon has not only come from GM, but from Goodyear as well. Tiregate erupted in August of 1998 when Gordon's team took two tires while others took four, and outpulled the cars on four tires, cars that had outrun Gordon all day. At New Hampshire Jack Roush howled that Gordon's tires were chemically doctored; this turned out to be a red herring that obscured a more serious issue. Geoff Bodine and Andy Petree have noted that Goodyear plays favorites via special tires to certain teams, a situation that almost certainly occurred here. "As far as the tire rule goes," crew chief Mike Hill has also noted, "it depends on who you are as to what they might do."

Then there are Jeff Gordon's Greatest Hits, particularly revealing in light of the Earnhardt-Terry Labonte Bristol melee -

BRISTOL, AUGUST 1993 - Punted Rick Wilson into the wall.

DAYTONA 500, 1994 - Hooked Todd Bodine head on into the wall in Chicken Bone Alley (the final quarter of backstretch); the wreck gobbled up five cars total.

WINSTON 500, 1994 - Went three wide in the trioval and crowded Greg Sacks into Todd Bodine; eleven cars were wrecked and Mark Martin drilled two guardrails and a catchfence.

DIEHARD 500, 1995 - Hooked Ken Schrader into a sickening tumble down the backstretch; eleven cars destroyed.

WINSTON 500, 1996 - Hung Mark Martin into the wall exiting the trioval; both spun and fourteen cars crashed; Ricky Craven ripped open the fencing atop Turn One and was hit by a spinning Elton Sawyer.

IROC, CHARLOTTE, 1996 - Hooked Steve Kinser; both spun, Kinser T-boned in six-car melee.

DAYTONA 500, 1997 - Crowded Dale Earnhardt into wall entering the backstretch; Earnhardt spun into Ernie Irvan and Dale Jarrett and flipped; Irvan's hood was disloged and injured three spectators.

PONTIAC 400, 1997 - Sideswiped Ernie Irvan under yellow; Irvan blew a tire after the ensuing restart.

WATKINS GLEN, 1997 - Jumped the final two restarts and received no penalty.

DIEHARD 500, 1997 - Halfway down the backstretch, Gordon swerved down two lanes and bodyslammed John Andretti; he then spun into Dale Earnhardt and Sterling Marlin, wiping out 21 cars. Gordon claimed the left rear tire blew to start the incident, though such an incident on a straightaway has never caused cars to change lanes before; video replays are inconclusive. Sterling Marlin disputed Gordon's account.

ATLANTA, NOVEMBER 1997 - Coming out of the garage, Gordon lost control and blindsided the parked Pontiac of Bobby Hamilton.

IROC, DAYTONA, 1998 - Field was three wide for second. Gordon hooked Tom Kendall into Randy LaJoie and the wall. He then jumped the final restart and passed on the left before the stripe to win. Racecaster Jack Arute told me the following Sunday that that crash cost Gordon all respect among his fellow drivers.

TEXAS 500, 1998 - Shoved Rick Mast and John Andretti into the first turn wall, detonating a ten-car melee.

NAPA 500, 1998 - Slammed Morgan Shepherd into first turn wall.

IROC, DAYTONA, 1999 - Punted Rusty Wallace into Dale Earnhardt Junior and Eddie Cheever. Wreck also involved Jeff Burton.

JIFFY LUBE 300, 1999 - Sideswiped Rusty Wallace into fourth turn wall. He then punted Dale Jarrett throughout the final lap, leading to the now-famous garage confrontation afterward.

The list is a work in progress.

This year's revelation that Hendrick Motorsports' annual budget reaches $60 million and that half goes to Gordon's team, coupled with NASCAR wind tunnel tests showing Gordon's car to be more lavishly engineered than the cars of other, less engineered teams - Gordon's car generated more downforce and had less drag than anyone else's - ought to have once and for all destroyed the myth of Gordon as NASCAR'S most magnificent race car driver. Gordon is a driver with mediocre talent, a cheapshot mentality, a weak crew chief, and the most thoroughly engineered, most lavishly funded racecars the sport has ever seen.

He also is a driver who had the full PR machinery in his corner from the beginning. Therein lies a curious upshot - he's been pushed onto the NASCAR scene as one who has brought in a new generation of fans and will carry the sport to the next century, yet he has angered more fans than he has made.

It's easy to see why.