Who's the Man to Beat?

The man to beat, dwindling gates, and the Bass Pro/MBNA 500 from Atlanta Motor Speedway.

The Man to Beat?

I recently wrote about how I wondered why Jeff Gordon got a lot more press during the off season than the reining Winston Cup Champion Tony Stewart did. I seemed that every stock car racing publication that I picked up had Gordon's mug plastered all over it, with nary a mention of the current champion.

I was amused the other day when I received my latest issue of the Stock Car Racing magazine. There was Gordon's mug on the front cover with the caption, "Still the Man to Beat." My first thought was, "Where, divorce court?" And I was going to renew that magazine too. The problem is, both magazines that I "used to get" spend more time kissing up to those they'd like to see on top than they do reporting and writing about the actual facts of Cup racing. It's kind of like Bob Dylan wrote in one of his songs, can't remember which one now, "If people would concern then selves with the way things are instead of the way they'd like them to be, the world would be a lot better place in which to live."

Gordon's performance in the beginning of the 2003 season certainly hasn't been what one could call of championship form. Although, there's still lots of time left for him to come out of his current slump and win his fifth championship in 2003. There's only one problem with that scenario, and that's the young guns with their vigorous competition level.

In the season's first three races Gordon's average starting position is 12.6 and his average finishing position is 21.3, just an average driver starting out an average season, according to the averages. Well, anyone can have bad luck and end up behind the wall getting repairs in the garage area. It happens to the majority of drivers at least once during any given season. I'm certainly not being quick to put Gordon out to pasture for the 2003 season, as I said above, there's lots of time left for him to shine, and he's always a threat on the track to sneak up and take the checkered flag from out of nowhere. How many times in the past few years have we seen that happen?

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