Thread: Gordon - New Baby Means He'll Race Longer

If you're a Jeff Gordon fan, you have to be happy about the baby in the oven. Because of this little boy in the making, Gordon is going to extend his racing days. Once he said he'd be out of the sport by 40. Now he wants to be around long enough for his children to really understand what Daddy did. I think at some point, he'll be doing the Mark Martin part time thing, but if he really wants his son to know the ropes, the kid has to be around it when he's 8, 9, and 10 years old. A 5 and 6 year old won't cut it.

This is it, though. Jeff says he and Ingy wanted 2 kids and that's it. They are right on schedule apparently.

This is news for me. I didn't know he was having a baby! Cool... I'm glad that it means he will stay in racing longer, now I hope he does a better job and wins a couple of races.

Yeah they announced she was pregnant during Daytona week a month or so ago and then just this past week, Jeff announced that it was a boy. What I think is wonderful is his reason for staying, wanting his kids to understand and have some memories. That's pretty cool.

I am always confused when I hear this and its more so for those who are in the coverage a great deal, but how would the kid not know what his parents do for a living. There is a ton of races that have been recorded through out the years. Now having the kid grow up in it is another story, so maybe they just worded it wrong?

Jeff wants his children to experience it, not just see it like it was a TV show. He wants them to remember how it is to get inside Papa's race car, to hopefully celebrate inside Victory Circle. He wants it to be an experience, not a photo album that no one remembers when it was taken. It's important to him that Ella and his son really know the racing world versus just being told about it.

Eh I have mixed feelings on this and its only from too many parents in the world pushing their kids into their own hobbies (going about it the wrong way), now I am fine to have them around the track now and then, but 24/7/365 is a little much no matter what industry the parent is in.

That's not what he's saying. He wants them to be able to say "I remember Papa racing" not "I saw a video of Papa racing". He talked about that just tonight on Trackside. He has no desire to force his kids into racing; he's just talking about them knowing what he did from experience, not being told. He's a racing legend; it would be nice for them to really comprehend that because they saw it first hand. Ella doesn't live at the track. She'll be 3 in June. She's just at the time when if he wins and she's there, she might remember Papa holding her in Victory Lane.

Rainbow, I can understand that he's not saying he wants to push the career on them, but unfortunately I share a little bit of creg's concern. It's very hard to stick out a career so that your kids can experience it and not expect them to appreciate it to the point of wanting to participate in it. If the kids love it, great, but it's hard to determine if Gordon will be the kind of parent who will be accepting if his kids decide that while what their dad did was cool, it just wasn't for them.

It's great that he is proud of what he does and wants to share that with his children. I also hope he does not try to force his racing on to his children. He has many years to wait until he can bring them on to the race track and have them understand what he does.

I worry if he has the kids around the track all the time, he is going to expect them (or at least the boy) to follow in his foot steps. It's sad, but it happens all the time.