Gordon Wins: Ladybug Luck?

You know, after going to a Cowboys game, a Rangers game, or a basketball game, for that matter—people always seem to discuss their favorite play, or the make or break play, or the play that won or lost the game for the team they are rooting for.

I have been watching NASCAR all my life, and just like watching the Cowboys play football, I can always remember watching auto racing.

I started attending actual races regularly at the spring race of 2002, at Texas Motor Speedway, with the exception of attending the IRL race the summer of 2001, the same year that Dale Earnhardt Sr. passed away.

I was also given the opportunity to go the Daytona 500 in 2004. They call this the Super Bowl of NASCAR. I truly will remember that race for a long time. Dale Earnhardt Jr. finally won at Daytona.

This past weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, was the 17th race at Texas, including the fall races, and I was there to see and support my favorite driver, Jeff Gordon.

Gordon finally won at Texas.

Last spring, he finished dead last—in 43rd place. This spring, he finished first.

What a huge difference.

I know that there are a lot of fans that don’t like Gordon. I am old enough to understand that not everyone likes every driver, but I do think that deep down, everyone respects the “opposing” drivers.

With this, I would like to share a special moment from the race with everyone.

As you all know by now, my favorite driver is Gordon. I have recently in the last couple of years started taking one or both of my youngest along with my oldest, Michael, to the Texas races.

My sons Michael and Trey are Earnhardt Jr. fans, and my youngest son, Eriq, likes Gordon.

Well, since we normally sit at the races where we can get close to the fence, as the drivers go around the track during driver introductions, I have been making a sign for Gordon, for Eriq to hold up as he goes by.

This year, I actually had Michael make one for Eriq, and it ended up looking really good:

Well, the special part of this story is not that we made the sign, but it is about a little lucky lady bug that landed on Eriq and kept coming back to us.

Anyway, as everyone probably already knows by now, Gordon won the race. Eriq is convinced it was the lady bug that did it. (This is a picture that we took as Gordon was driving around the track with the checkered flag.)

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