Doug Gordon feature‏

Second Generation racer Gordon sets Vegas Wally in his sights
by Todd Veney

You'd never know it by looking at him, but Doug Gordon has been driving Alcohol Funny Cars for almost two decades now. The many-time national event winner and three-time Division 7 champion, still in his mid-30s, took over for dad Mike Gordon when he was just 18 and has gone on to be one of the most successful drivers of the past 20 years.

"It wasn't like I was always saying, 'C'mon, dad, c'mon dad, let me drive," Gordon said. "My dad was a good driver and always liked driving, but when the construction industry had a downturn in the early '90s, kind of like the one we're in right now, he figured he'd let me drive for a year and then we'd probably have to quit. If it hadn't been for that, I definitely wouldn't have started driving when I was 18, but all these years later, we're still out here."

Following in the footsteps of his dad, who won the 1992 Allstars race at Columbus and finished second there the following year, Doug has gone on to win 16 divisional events in 30 final-round appearances and four national events in 11 final-round appearances. But none of those represent the high-water mark of his career.

That came at the 2005 Jegs Allstars race, where Gordon outran none other than the man himself, Frank Manzo, in the final. "I have a 30-by-40 picture of it

hanging on the wall in my office," said Gordon, who does CAD layout at Morro Bay Cabinets, the family's custom-cabinet business in Paso Robles, Calif. "When the race was on TV, Bob Frey said, 'Well, that's it – Manzo's off the starting line first. It's over.' But I drove around him, 5.62 to 5.65. I'd been to the Allstars five or six times by then and had never won a round, so to win that race, and to beat Frank Manzo in the final, was really big to me. That has to better than any of the national event wins."

It's definitely better than the second one, in Sonoma in 2001, which came just a week after his first, in Seattle, where he upset the winningest driver in Alcohol Funny Car history to that point, four-time world champ Pat Austin. "We were in line for the winner's circle," Gordon said, "and every time it was time to move up, we'd tell the guy behind us, 'Go ahead. Go around us,' because we wanted the whole thing to last as long as possible. Then a week later, we won again, over Bucky [Austin]. I was like, 'What? I'm still trying to soak up the first one.' "

Gordon's next national event victory, two years later at the Winternationals, was just as memorable. "That was the first race that [then girlfriend, now wife] Christina ever went to," he said. "I was telling her, 'OK, this is a drag strip. These are the guys we're racing against.' Then we won the first round. Then we were in the semi's. I told her, 'Uh, yeah, it doesn't always go like this. We don't always do this well.' Then we won the race, and we were waiting for the winner's circle, and she was like, 'Wow, people really want your autograph?' Then we went to the

points meet at Phoenix and won, then we went to Tucson and won that one, too, and I was trying to explain to her that this wasn't going to happen every time."

Christina, Doug's mom Cheryl, daughters Madison (7) and Macy (6), and eldest daughter Taylor (14) are as much a part of the team as Doug and Mike. "Madison and Macy go to the shop with me every Saturday to work on the car with Dad, and when Taylor can go to the races, she packs the chutes. If it wasn't for racing, I'd probably be doing one thing, and my mom and dad would be off somewhere doing something else. It's is a big social thing for us, and probably 95 percent of my mom's friends are right there at the track. I always wanted to drive, but it isn't the ultimate thrill for me. I could go to the races and not drive, no problem. I like working on the car and helping my dad tune it and being with my friends like the Gasparrellis more than I like being in the car."

As a driver, Gordon won Division 7 Top Alcohol Funny Car championships in 2003, 2004, and 2006. He's finished in the national top 10 multiple times and has won at least once at just about all of the West Coast tracks – Pomona, Sonoma, Seattle, Sacramento, Bakersfield, Tucson, Phoenix, Fallon, and Fontana. About the only place he hasn't is at The Strip At Las Vegas Motor Speedway, site of this weekend's regional event.

"I have no idea why," said Gordon, who was runner-up at the 2004 Las Vegas divisional. "It's a beautiful track, obviously, but it can be tough to get down. The

track is so good and the air's not, so it's hard not to shake the tires, and we never seem to run good there. There are always so many cars at that race, and at the national event there in Vegas, that if you can win there, it's equivalent to winning at Pomona."