He seemed to be hurting today and with the wife and daughter around
how close is the end of his career? Always wondered if Jeff might
give LeMans a run someday.

"Texan in Belgium" <joedopebucket (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote

Some off season back surgery made them like new again.

"Billy BadButt" <wgas-14 (AT) wgaf (DOT) com> wrote

That celebrity red carpet treatment is what they do not want to give up.
They have more than enough money for several generations. They just do not
want to become normal.

Tim Shelton wrote:

I think next year will be his last.

"Tim Shelton" <noemail1543 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote

There are a lot of "old" guys driving in NASCAR because it is an old people
sport. I do not want to be Crusader but just by looking at the lineup I
would say that more than half of the drivers are above the age of 33. It
does not hurt anything if Martin is 50 and Elliott is 54 and Labonte is 48
in the next race but it just indicates that NASCAR is on a general downhill
slide.

On Aug 10, 9:56*pm, "RickyBobby" <nasca... (AT) cox (DOT) net> wrote:
it is part of that but think of it another way...imagine just about
every week of your life since you were 15 or 16 years old driving a
race car, until you are 40 (or 50 in MM's case), your entire life has
been in the same rhythm, the same stuff to do every week. every driver
longs for the off-season but they run out of things to do and want to
get back to racing, but they run out of things to do, and don't know
what to do with them selves. if these guys were racing for the money,
most of em could've retired after half a season and guarantee their
children would inherit enough money to never have to work. it's the
rhythm they miss, and they don't know what to do with themselves when
they leave the sport.

Most of the drivers who are reasonably able to retire keep racing
because they love to compete and they love to race. You give them no
credit whatsoever, because you think they all think like you do.

There are a number of drivers just a few years younger than JG, so I
think it's disingenuous to single him out as "ready to retire."
Harvick is 34, Kenseth is 37, Biffle will be 40 this year.....

N.

Nancy2 wrote:

Gordon has long said that he doesn't see himself racing far into his
40s. He's also been talking a lot lately about "looking back" at his
career and being able to enjoy the fruits of his success with his family
while still playing a role at HMS. With his newly acquired status as a
father and his chronic back problems, it's not difficult to envision his
retirement coming sooner rather than later. When you also consider that
his contract with DuPont ends after next season, it's easy to envision
next year being his last.

On Aug 11, 2:20*pm, Vandar <vanda... (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote:
True - I didn't forget these things. However, he has also said that
as long as he's competitive and it's fun for him to race, he'll race.
He does want to get more involved in the business side, he's said that
several times.

We'll see. These things were all a matter of record before the back
problems came to the fore.

N.

Billy BadButt wrote:
There are some back problems that can't be fixed with surgery...like
degenerative disc.