Cavin: Jeff Gordon"s retirement one for the family

NASCAR Victory Lane: Jeff Gordon - Martinsville 2015

Jeff Gordon"s parents, Carol (left) and John Bickford, will have an emotional finale, too, as the driver retires.(Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)

HOMESTEAD, Fla. Now it all makes sense. Wonder Boy, as Jeff Gordon was often called in his early NASCAR days, was a product of Wonder Bread.

Seem silly? Trace the steps.

Gordons mother, Carol, was no more than 12 years old, maybe 13, when her father, Pat, worked for the Continental Baking Company in Vallejo, Calif. Pat delivered bread Wonder Bread, mostly to various businesses in the community, most without fanfare, but one captured Carols attention.

The house phone would ring on a Saturday night, with something ofa food emergency on the line. Vallejo Speedway, which featured the racing of hard-top cars as they were still called in the 1950s, would be so crammed with race fans that it would run short on hot dogs and hamburgers, and it needed help. Buns, specifically.

Off Pat would go, Carol in tow.

Carol freely admits she wasnt much help because she was mesmerized by the action at what was billed as the fastest quarter mile in the West. The cars were loud, fast and while not necessarily sleek, they had a beauty about them, and she was smitten.

I loved going out there, she said, reminiscing this week.

Which sets the scene for what happens Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway (3 p.m., WTHR-13, NBCSN) when Jeff Gordon goes for another Sprint Cup Series championship in his final stock car race.

Years later, as a divorced mother of two young children, Carol agreed to a date with colleague John Bickford, the designer at the hospital supply company where they worked. On the side, John was a builder of race cars and a crew chief,and their first date was at that same Vallejo dirt track at Solano County Fairgrounds.

Carol had again found love in that noisy, dusty place.

A footnote to the date was that Carols children, Kim and Jeff, were in tow. Jeff doesnt remember it he wasnt yet 2 years old but there was something symbolic of his first night with John. They would have many, many, many more in racing in the years to come. John is the longtime president of Jeff Gordon Inc., responsible for everything involving Jeff, including the Italian-made inscribed gifts Jeff on Saturday gaveto every other driverin Sunday"sSprint Cup Series field.

The rest, of course, is motor sports history. John and Carol married, and soon after Jeff learned to walk, he learnedto ride a bike at Johns side. By age 4, Jeff was racing boys twice his age in BMX, and before long it was time for the quarter-midget racers John brought home for the kids.

Were talking the mid-1970s here, which speaks to the amount of time and energythe family has invested in racing.

Truly, all these years our lives have been planned around a race, or the race, or around people coming to town to see Jeff race, Carol said. People would stay with us when we moved to Indiana. They went to sprint car races with us. They scraped mud off the side of race cars.

She laughs.

When he came down here (to NASCAR), we didnt have to scrape mud anymore, she said.

Jeff has gone on to become one of the most successful race car drivers in U.S. history, winning four Cup championships and collecting93 race wins, including three Daytona 500s and a record five Brickyard 400s. He has won millions of dollars in prize money and collected countless more in salary and endorsements. His first year in Cup, when he wasnt yet 22 years old and still looked like a student attending Tri-West High School in Lizton, he was paid $1 million by Hendrick Motorsports.

Its fair to say Gordon has been stock car racings most recognizable face since Dale Earnhardt was killed in 2001. He has been admired and adored, and the cameras will be focused on him throughout the Ford 400. He starts fifth.

Carol knows how big this moment is she still goes to the grocery store after all, and his face adorns magazine covers at checkout lines.

I told him the other day,"Ive seen a lot of you lately," she said.

The move to Pittsboro

John has received so much of the credit for Jeffs success, and rightly so. He guided his stepson through the earliest days, all the way up to through that first Cup championship. But Jeffs sister gets some credit, too.

Kim graduated from high school in Vallejo just as Jeff was showing significant signs of becoming a legitimate race car driver. She chose to attend San Diego State, which obviously wasnt close to the familys home northeast of San Francisco.

For any suspicion that John pushed for a family move to the Midwest, where Jeff could race sprint cars at an earlier age, Carol said Kim had an influential voice. Kim could see the opportunity available to her kid brother of four years, and it wasnt like she was going to be home much anyway. Go for it, she suggested.

They say timing in life is everything, right? Carol said.

Jeff had raced one summer in Ohio, but because the family had racing friends in Indiana the Osbornes and Easts, to name a few the decision was made to make that their new base. Appropriately, John and Jeff were off racing that 1986 season when Carol flew to Indianapolis to select and purchasewhat became their new Hendricks County home southwestof Pittsboro.

As crazy as it sounds," Carol said of the transition,"it made sense."

As crazy as this sounds, Carol wasn"t even present for Jeff"s first big racing achievement. She was inSan Diego visiting Kim when Jeff won the 1989 Night Before the 500 midget race at Indianapolis Raceway Park. That race was a first for Jeff on so many levels his first time in a midget, his first pavement race, his first drive for car owner Rollie Helmling but it was also something of a first for Carol.

She didnt know anything about the Night Before the 500, ashort-track racingjeweltelevised by ESPN.

I was like, Oh, thats great, she said of the winning news delivered by telephone. He was excited, and I was excited for him, so that was enough.

So many more nights like that were to come, of course.

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Jeff Gordon with his wife, Ingrid Vandebosch, and their children Ella and Leo met with Ron Howard in 2012, the year he drove the pace car for the Brickyard 400 at The Indianapolis Motor Speedway.(Photo: Kristin Enzor/ For The Star)

It was about this time last year that Jeff decided he wanted to quit driving stockcars to spend more time with his wife, Ingrid, and their children, Ella and Leo.That set in motion a series of activities building toward Sundays green flag. One of those was knee replacement surgery for Carol; she had it after the Brickyard 400 in order not to miss hometown races at Sonoma Raceway (in June) and Indianapolis Motor Speedway (in July).

Jeffs retirement also meant the familys last official race at their latest home track, Charlotte Motor Speedway. They had watched so many of his Cup races overlooking Turn 1in a condominium owned by Ken Barbie, the man who owned the apparel company first outfitting the would-be champion.

Barbie had long vowed to sell the condominium when Jeff retired, so at last months race, the friends went through the necessary festivities, goodbyes included.

I cant imagine why I would go back, Carol said. Ill be watching (on TV), probably watching races forever, but I wont go. Why would I?

John has a reason, maybe several. For one, Jeffs 2016 retirement tour will require the attention of various business endeavors, so John will oversee them.John also has a nephew, 17-year-old James Bickford of Napa, Calif., who is a promising young race car driver, having won two races in NASCARs K&N Pro Series West series.

He looks really good, so Ill help him where I can, John said of James. Plus, I get a lot of calls from moms and dads who want to see their children do this.

But John acknowledges changes are coming for those who have been with Jeffall these years.

Its been a h**l of a trip, he said, exhaling. But the rides not over.

Follow Curt Cavin on Facebook and Twitter: @curtcavin

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Source: http://www.indystar.com/story/sports/motor/2015/11/21/cavin-jeff-gordons-retirement-one-family/76167170/