In 1977, long before Gordon became a four-time NASCAR champion, Gordon stepped behind the wheel of his first quarter midget at the urging of his stepfather, John Bickford.

Bickford remembered Gordon’s first few laps at the makeshift racetrack in Vallejo, Calif. as less than stellar.

“He slipped around the track for days getting used to the car and how to drive it,” he said.

Not long after that, Gordon, barely school age, started turning heads.

At the age of six, he won 35 main events en route to the Western States Championship. He won his first Grand National Championship in 1979. A year later, Gordon took 50 fastest time awards and 46 race wins in 50 events.

“I really felt comfortable and confident in those cars,” said Gordon. “I felt that I could win just about every time out.”

After dominating the quarter midget scene, Gordon, bored with racing, nearly started a career in waterskiing before moving on to sprint cars.

When Gordon turned 13, Bickford felt the time was right to put his stepson in the driver’s seat of a 650 horsepower sprint car for the first time. Race organizers didn’t agree, feeling Gordon was too young to run such a developed racecar. Still, preparations for Gordon’s sprint car career went on.

“I knew it was going to be tough, but all I wanted was a chance to prove whether I could or couldn’t drive these cars,” Gordon said.

Gordon was finally allowed to run in Jacksonville at the All Star Florida Speedweeks, provided he started at the back of the field.

He hit the wall in that first effort, but ran on a dozen different tracks that year, culminating in a 12th-place effort.

Gordon’s first sprint car win came in 1986 at the KC Speedway in Chillicothe, Ohio. In all, Gordon won 22 USAC races and garnered 55 top-five and 66 top-10 finishes.

In 1990, at age 19, Gordon became the youngest USAC National Midge Champion in history. A year later, he won the USAC dirt title to become the youngest Silver Crown winner ever.

In 1991, after taking Buck Baker’s driving school at North Carolina Speedway, Jeff told his stepfather to “sell everything. We’re going stock car racing.”

Gordon won three Busch Series races in 1992 before jumping to Cup racing, where he won rookie of the year honors in 1993 and the first of his four titles in 1995. Gordon also took top honors in ’97, ’98 and 2001.