Gordon Drives ‘Em Wild Youngest Daytona 500 Winner Prevails After Earnhardt Crashes

The Intimidator took another harrowing 180-miles-per-hour tumble Sunday, Wonder Boy celebrated yet another wondrous journey, and the 39th annual Daytona 500 shuffled more storylines and plot twists than any of the previous 38.

Jeff Gordon, 25 years, 6 months and 12 days old and on the fast track to greatness, became the youngest winner of the Great American Race - upstaging the legendary Richard Petty, who was 26 when he earned the first of his seven Daytona 500 victories.

In the frantic closing stages of a daylong chase that would make a hokey movie script, Gordon:

-Tailgated seven-time Winston Cup champion and no-time Daytona 500 winner Dale Earnhardt’s Chevrolet so tightly that Earnhardt banged the wall and flipped savagely on the 189th lap.

-Drove almost to the infield grass in Turn 1 on lap 195 to wrest the lead from two-time Daytona 500 winner Bill Elliott, who for a day looked like the Awesome Bill of old.

-And led Rick Hendrick Motorsports teammates Terry Labonte and Ricky Craven past the checkered flag in 1-2-3 order and three-abreast formation under caution to honor a team owner engaged in a life-threatening battle with leukemia.

Fling into the mix six crashes disfiguring 22 of 42 starting cars, nine leaders in a strategic chess match played with 3,400 pieces, and a live audience estimated at 170,000 and millions watching on CBS-TV, often from incar camera viewpoints.

Oh, and don’t leave out Earnhardt’s stubborn streak. He had walked to an ambulance but, seeing that the crunched black No. 3 still had all its wheels and an engine that would fire, returned to strap in and not only drive it back to the pits but back onto the track apron for the final laps.

Some show.

Wild finish.

Hendrick general manager Jimmy Johnson thrust a cellular phone into the cockpit of the No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet as Gordon rolled into victory ceremonies. Rick Hendrick, back home in Charlotte, N.C., readying for six months of chemotherapy, was on the other end of the line.

“Did I tell you we were going to do it?” Gordon shouted jubilantly. But the engine still was running. Gordon couldn’t hear Hendrick. He assumed Hendrick couldn’t hear him.

He turned off the engine and repeated his “I told you” yelps. “And Rick says, ‘Who is this?’ ” Gordon said later to laughter. “I said, ‘This is Jeff.’ Then he just went nuts.”

After a couple more brief exchanges, Gordon signed off, “I have to go talk to the world, man. We love you so much.”

The stock car racing world belongs to Gordon, who in 1995 won the Winston Cup championship only three months past his 24th birthday.