Geoff’s Journal: It’s hard to be friends with your competitors
A few weeks back at the Martinsville race in April, I got to spend much of Sunday with four-time champ and Hendrick Motorsports race driver Jeff Gordon.
As part of the 40-year anniversary of Rick Hendrick’s first Cup Series win in 1984 with Harry Hyde and I, many former and current Hendrick Motorsports employees were at the track, and all of the racecars had a special ruby paint scheme.
Gordon and I served as co-grand marshals, spoke with fans and the media, and shared many laughs. We definitely became friends.
That wouldn’t have happened back in our racing days.
When you’re racing against a competitor, it is hard to be a friend.
After a race, you may have to sometimes bump them, shove them (on accident or on purpose), beat their head off, or off the track, beat them in business.
But now that we’re not competing against each other, Jeff and I can be friends.
Jeff and I talked about how we’re doing and what we’ve been doing. I got to meet his family at Martinsville.
We had a good time. I made him laugh a few times throughout the day with our time with the media, interviews, etc.
The nice thing that he said was, “This is your day. We’re co-grand marshals, but this is your day. You’re the guy that won that first race. You’re the guy that’s important today.”
I was really impressed when he said that. It was amazing.
That weekend, he wanted me to get the attention, and I appreciated that.
We also took some jabs at each other.
I joked with him about spinning me out back in the day, and he did the same. I was able to joke with him too that while he did win more Cup Series races at Martinsville (9), I won more races in Cup AND other series (15).
We became friends. It’s a lot nicer and a better way to live.
Hopefully, in the future, we’ll do more things together. The animosity, the bad feelings of being in competition with somebody, are gone.
Another great example of being friends nowadays happened last year.
When Darlington Raceway hosted the 75 Greatest Drivers last May, it was nice to catch up with many of my former competitors.
For example, Rusty Wallace and I didn’t get along when we were racing, but when we saw each other last year, we were asking each other what we’ve been up to, how’s the families, kids, grandkids.
It’s so great to be nice to people.
Categories
Discover more from The Racing Experts
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
