Just call him Papa

NEW YORK – Papa pulls his oversized SUV along an Upper West Side curb on a cold, wet weekday and makes one last check to be sure the back seat entertainment system is working. Then he zigzags his way through raindrops, nannies and strollers toward the preschool entrance.

Ten minutes later, he emerges in a full-on sprint with the love of his life, a blonde 2-year-old. If he stays on schedule, they’ll have 30 precious minutes together for books and games before he heads to work.

“Come see my playroom!” little Ella shrieks as she bounced through the door of their apartment.

Papa is more commonly known as Jeff Gordon, NASCAR’s four-time champion and all-time earnings leader at $111 million in race winnings. He’s the superstar who transformed stock-car racing on and off the track. His 82 career victories rank No. 5 in history, and he’s credited with forever changing the moneymaking prospects for drivers. He dazzled Madison Avenue and opened opportunities never before seen in NASCAR.

But here, sitting cross-legged on the floor of an apartment near Central Park, he’s just Papa.

“I love being a dad. It’s the greatest,” he said. “It’s changed how I go about day to day, and what’s important to me. Every day is, ‘How she’s doing? What’s new? What can I teach her? What am I not teaching her?’ ”

Gordon, who will turn 39 in August, has reinvented himself for at least the third time in his professional career. Now he’s a family guy. And the funny thing is, despite all the warnings that fatherhood would ruin his competitive spirit, the opposite is true.

He was a 20-year-old with a mustache and a mullet on the fast track to superstardom when he broke into NASCAR’s elite Cup division in the 1992 season finale. He made his debut the same day seven-time champion Richard Petty took his final bow, and the symbolic changing of the guard was lost on no one.

By the time Gordon won his first race, the 1994 Coca-Cola 600, he was clean-shaven and cried from the cockpit of a car he’d named “Brooke” after his then-fiancée, Brooke Sealey. He married the former Victory Lane model soon after, and the couple morphed into the “Ken and Barbie” of NASCAR.

They were squeaky clean, charitable and deeply religious. Gordon spoke at Promise Keeper conventions, and the couple held Bible studies in their home. But the push for perfection took its toll on the couple and Gordon says now that he knew the marriage was over during the trophy presentation at Atlanta in 2001 for his fourth championship.

Divorce proceedings began early in 2002, and with them came a brand new Gordon.

As a single, he began to live a less-guarded life. There were parties, nightclubs, models, a guest host gig on “Saturday Night Live” and a newfound love of New York City, which had intimidated him most of his life.

Gordon also had himself a wingman in Jimmie Johnson, the protégé he’d brought to Hendrick Motorsports the year before. The two were close, sometimes inseparable, as they racked up wins and celebrated their fame together.

But people change over time, and Gordon and Johnson eventually settled down. For Gordon, his new love was a Belgian model named Ingrid Vandebosch, who had spurned him a few years earlier when, fresh off his divorce, he refused to commit to a serious relationship.

Given a second chance with the leggy brunette, he fell head over heels in love and the two were married late in the 2006 season. Their first child, Ella Sofia, was born the next June and so began Gordon’s third makeover.

Gordon he recently opened up his life to the AP and USA Today, inviting both media outlets to spend a week with the driver known simply as “Four-Time” throughout the industry. He granted access to appearances, meetings and family time.

His first day in New York began with an appearance for ESPN and a brief meet-and-greet with Disney CEO Bob Iger and ESPN president George Bodenheimer. There’s just enough time to go home and change out of his suit before it’s time to pick up Ella, whom the Gordons are raising with the help of a part-time nanny. Ella wants to play and read and show the guests her bedroom, but Papa has only a limited amount of time before his weekly HMS conference call.

Lunch is in the lobby restaurant of his building, where he cuts Ella’s salmon and feeds it to her while imploring her to “sit like a lady” or else no dessert. Then it’s off to his workout, a trek that takes two different trains but Gordon remains blissfully anonymous in the crowded subway.

The most striking part of Gordon’s week, though, is the family time. He crams in every 30 minutes he can while splitting time between New York City and Charlotte, N.C., where he’s in the final stages of building a home for Ingrid and the kids. Their second child, a boy, is due in August.

His daughter has made him more aware of what’s important and how he wants her to view him.

With just one points win since 2008 – a race at Texas last season that Ella missed – Gordon has yet to celebrate with his daughter in Victory Lane and it gnaws at him.

“I really feel my work is almost more important to me now because it almost has more purpose and meaning,” he said. “I think I kind of lost that a little bit. Now my pride is on the line.

“I don’t want her walking on the bus mentioning any other driver’s name. ‘Yeah Papa! Way to go!’ I want to make her proud.”

This could be the year.

After two subpar seasons, Gordon is back on his game.

Although he’s yet to reach Victory Lane in 2010 – he’s stuck in a 42-race winless streak – he’s led a Sprint Cup Series-best 709 laps and has been in position to win four times.

Gordon believes he’s in the best shape of his life and poised to finally finish the “Drive for Five” campaign that began in 2001, two reinventions ago – long before diapers, play dates and a chance for Papa to make his baby girl proud.