To become a professional race car
driver, at a minimum you have to have the right mentors and coaches, thousands of hours of behind-the-wheel experience, and access to the types of cars and capital that engender this lifestyle. But the intangibles might be just as important. As former NASCAR driver Cale Yarborough once put it, “Driving a race car is like dancing with a chainsaw.” Danger is built into the enterprise, and a lot of the people who are willing to take on this task have a larger-than-life risk tolerance.
And some of them really like pranks. Here’s a bit about the weird saga of Jeff Gordon’s test drives—fake or not.
Why Jeff Gordon is qualified to be his own stuntman
Jeff Gordon is a living racing legend and a fascinating character. He narrowly missed the podium on the
“Biggest Hot Heads in NASCAR” list compiled by Bleacher Report
, ranking fourth, thanks in part to famous fights with fellow drivers Clint Bowyer and Brad Keselowski. A penchant for outbursts is, luckily, complemented by an impressive NASCAR resume.
Jeff Gordon raced between 1992 and 2016, and along the way collected “four Cup titles, 93 wins, 81 poles, and 477 Top 10s,” says Essentially Sports
. This makes him among the winningest drivers in NASCAR history. If his iconic multicolored number 24 Chevrolet was in the race, a checkered flag was its likely photographic companion.
In 2013, Gordon added one more title to his accolades: prankster. A viral video shows the heavily disguised racer pretending to be a shy customer on a car lot.
A salesman invites him to do a test drive of a Camaro, to which Gordon at first demures, saying “it’s too much car for me.” The salesman politely persists, and soon Gordon is behind the wheel.
It quickly goes downhill from there. Gordon takes the Camaro on an insane joyride, doing screeching donuts and an impressive bit of stunt driving over nearby ramps, all at obviously unsafe speeds.
The salesman is understandably panicky, and as the situation escalates he blurts out, “You’re an idiot and I’m gonna kill you!”
They finally halt back at the lot, and the stunt (all heavily branded by Pepsi Max) is revealed for what it is. The salesman is oddly quick to forgive this maniac, but perhaps it’s the Jeff Gordon factor.
The twist, and the revenge
A Jalopnik reporter named Travis Okulski was not having it. He called out Jeff Gordon and the Pepsi team for staging a fake video, calling out the rubber marks on the road as evidence of multiple takes.
An ABC reporter also noted that, when reached for comment, Gordon’s team declined to say if the salesman in the video was an actor or not. And tellingly, perhaps, the team admitted that a stunt driver had done portions of the video. Clearly, this wasn’t all spontaneous and fun.
But for Okulski, who was perhaps basking in the triumph of journalism, had unwittingly poked a hornet’s nest. In a subsequent video, we see the Jalopnik reporter hop into the back of a cab, driven by—you guessed it—a heavily disguised Jeff Gordon. In this video, Gordon pretends to be a recently released convict with a deathly fear of the cops.
When a cop car pulls up behind them, Gordon freaks out and begins a wildly fast and reckless drive to try to shake off the cop. His passenger thinks he’s in very real danger, and his reactions range from kicking the glass partition between the driver’s seat and the backseat, and attempting to placate him with a constant stream of “sirs.”
As with the salesman, the situation reaches a fever pitch, and then quickly drops off when Gordon pulls into a Pepsi Max-covered garage, where recognition quickly dawns on Okulski’s face. He had been had.
Despite the fear he felt, which he chronicled in a piece
about his experience, his first reaction to the revelation of the prank was to say yes to Jeff Gordon’s offer of another ride. Perhaps you can’t say no to an offer from a legend, even when he just kind of kidnapped you.
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A he said, he said
To this day the internet still argues over the veracity of either man’s claims, but one thing is for sure: the test drives are pretty impressive, and if pranks are your cup of tea, they’re pretty funny.
And they’re a good cautionary tale for any smug reporters out there. You never know when your hit piece will turn into a hit on you.
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