Jeff Gordon celebrating a NASCAR Cup Series win in Victory Lane

Jeff Gordon: Four Championships, 93 Wins and the Rainbow Warrior Who Changed NASCAR

July 09, 2026

Welcome to the Happy Hour Racing Driver Spotlight - where we pull one Cup Series driver into the garage, look under the hood at their career, and tell you what makes them tick. This week: the number 24.

Jeff Gordon celebrating a NASCAR Cup Series win in Victory Lane, arms raised in his firesuit — Jeff Gordon celebrates in Victory Lane after winning the 2011 Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix International Raceway. (Photo: Jordan McNerney for AARP, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

The Short Version

Jeff Gordon is a four-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, the driver who made the number 24 famous, and one of only three drivers in history to reach 90 career wins. He came up through go-karts and sprint cars in California, and Rick Hendrick put him in a Cup car before he turned twenty-two. By twenty-four he was already a champion. Gordon retired from full-time racing after the 2015 season with 93 wins, four titles, and a Hall of Fame plaque waiting for him. If you only know one thing about him, know this: he is a big reason an entire generation of fans started following NASCAR in the first place.

From Vallejo to Hendrick Motorsports

Jeff Gordon was born on August 4, 1971, in Vallejo, California. His stepfather, John Bickford, put him behind the wheel of a quarter midget at age five, and Gordon was winning main events before he could legally drive on the street. By eleven he had won every karting race he entered that year. At sixteen he became the youngest driver ever to hold a USAC license, and by twenty he had already won USAC's national midget championship and the Silver Crown title.

Rick Hendrick saw him race on television in 1992 and signed him before the season was even over. Gordon made his Cup Series debut that November at Atlanta, finishing 31st, then took over the number 24 Chevrolet full time in 1993. He never drove for another Cup Series owner.

Four Championships and a New Kind of Star

Gordon won his first title in 1995 at twenty-four years old, the youngest champion of NASCAR's modern era at that point. Two more followed in 1997 and 1998, the second coming with thirteen wins and a 364-point margin, one of the most dominant seasons ever run. His fourth championship came in 2001. Along the way he won the Daytona 500 three times, in 1997, 1999, and 2005, and became the youngest winner of NASCAR's biggest race up to that point.

Gordon also became the best road racer of his era. He piled up nine road-course wins, still among the most in Cup Series history, and fans who followed him through the 1990s and 2000s watched him do it at Watkins Glen and Sonoma almost every year.

Jeff Gordon signing autographs for fans in the garage area at Watkins Glen International — Jeff Gordon in the garage at Watkins Glen International, one of the road courses where he built his reputation as one of NASCAR's best road racers. (Photo: chuck624, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Signature Moments

Gordon announced his own retirement from full-time competition in January 2015, telling fans directly instead of letting the news leak out first.

Letting team know this will be my final year competing for a championship.
— Jeff Gordon (@JeffGordonWeb) January 22, 2015

He spent his final full-time season chasing a fifth title, won the pole for the season finale at Homestead, and led a race-high 161 laps before an early pit call cost him track position. He fought back to finish sixth. His last Cup win had come months earlier at Martinsville. He closed out 23 seasons in the number 24 having never driven for anyone but Hendrick Motorsports.

By the Numbers

Here is the career laid out in the parts that matter. Every number below is a Cup Series career figure.

Career figures are Cup Series totals. Original Happy Hour Racing graphic.

Off the Track

Gordon married Belgian model Ingrid Vandebosch in 2006, and they have two children, Ella and Leo. The family lives in Charlotte. In 1999 he started the Jeff Gordon Children's Foundation, which supports kids with life-threatening illnesses, and in 2006 the foundation opened a children's hospital in North Carolina that carries his name.

Since retiring, Gordon has stayed close to the sport. He works as a broadcast analyst for Fox Sports, calling Cup Series races, and he now serves as vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports, the only team he ever drove for, with an ownership stake in his old number 24 car. In 2019 he was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, named on 96 percent of ballots, the highest total any driver had received at that point.

Fun Stats

Gordon's 475 top-10 finishes rank third all time in the Cup Series.
He is the all-time leader with 12 combined wins at Daytona and Talladega, NASCAR's two restrictor-plate tracks.
In 2017 he won his class outright at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, one of only a handful of drivers to win both that race and the Daytona 500.
He was elected to the NASCAR Hall of Fame's Class of 2019 alongside Roger Penske and Jack Roush.

The Bottom Line

Jeff Gordon took a rainbow-colored Chevrolet and turned it into one of the most recognized cars in American sports. Four championships, 93 wins, and a Hall of Fame plaque are the proof, but the bigger legacy is the fans he brought into NASCAR who are still watching today.