All eyes on Jeff Gordon as NASCAR season gets underway

Storylines are in abundance at the beginning of every season, regardless of sport, and NASCAR has plenty with its season getting revved up with Saturday’s Sprint Unlimited and next week’s Daytona 500.

Is this the year Dale Earnhardt Jr. breaks through and wins a championship? Does Jimmie Johnson get back to his winning ways? Can Danica Patrick finally find Victory Lane? How will Tony Stewart respond after a tumultuous season?

But those are all secondary headlines going into the season. The clear-cut, no-brainer story of the 2015 season will be Jeff Gordon.

The 43-year-old veteran driver has announced this will be the final full-time season of what has been an illustrious career. Gordon is a four-time champion, and helped take the sport to new heights.

“This is the last year to see our Michael Jordan,” Texas Motor Speedway president Eddie Gossage said. “This is one of the greats, and he’s going out when he’s still competitive and has a chance to win the whole thing. I thought he really was going to win the championship last year.

All of his fellow drivers understand what Gordon brought to the sport, too, and offered similar praise this week during media day in Daytona.

“It’s been an overwhelming experience, this whole thing,” Gordon said. “When you finally make it public and then you get the reaction back, and the reactions that I saw were really humbling, and it’s very cool to see people that you compete against especially, say those kind of things about you.”

Gordon’s farewell tour is certainly the No. 1 thing to watch in racing this season. But there’s more than that as well. Here are some other storylines:

Year 2 of new Chase

Said Gossage: “It was pretty darn spectacular last year, and I think any doubters had to be won over with how it all worked out. I don’t think you can get any more drama than we had.”

Crew-chief carousel

Several big-name drivers have changed crew chiefs, which is essentially like a baseball team changing managers.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Greg Ives), Jamie McMurray (Matt McCall), Danica Patrick (Daniel Knost), Kasey Kahne (Keith Rodden) and Carl Edwards (Darian Grubb) are among almost a third of the drivers who are working with a new crew chief.

NASCAR is a win-now industry, after all, and teams are willing to make moves in order to succeed. However, some of those moves don’t pan out quite as well.

Said Gossage: “It’s definitely going to be intriguing. Some will work and some won’t. So you may see early changes because everybody can’t win. Teams are quicker to pull the trigger than they used to be — it’s just part of the high-pressure nature of our sport.”

Less speed?

NASCAR has made several changes to Cup cars this year, such as lowering the spoilers and introducing tapered spacers that in part cut horsepower from 850 to 725. So, yes, an experienced fan will likely notice lower speeds down the straightaways.

But the speed lost on the straightaway could be made up on the turns because of a new, softer tire developed by Goodyear.

Sponsorship search

Sprint will not sponsor the Cup Series once its contract runs out after the 2016 season. That means it’s an important time for the sport to showcase its value to land another lucrative deal.

The new Chase format is geared toward engaging more fans and creating more interest, and this is certainly a critical time for the long-term stability of the sport.

Said Gossage: “Right now, this has to be the most enticing sponsorship opportunity in the world of sports marketing. You can’t put your name on the NFL or NBA, but you can on NASCAR racing. I don’t think they’re going to have a hard time finding a sponsor; it’s just a matter of finding the right one. It’s very much wide open.”

5 drivers to watch (other than Gordon)

▪ Dale Earnhardt Jr.: He remains the most popular driver in the sport, but has yet to win a championship. He’s 40, so you have to wonder how many more opportunities he’s going to get. For now, though, he’s focused on defending his Daytona 500 title.

Said Earnhardt: “I’ll just get out there and make all the good decisions that I can in the draft, and put myself up toward the front and try to work hard to stay there, and really be mentally disciplined to fend off the challenges, and all that stuff that we did in the race last year.”

▪ Jimmie Johnson: The six-time champ remains one of the favorites to win it all. He had an earlier than expected exit last year, but is poised for another strong season.

Said Johnson: “I feel with my talents as a driver, the team that I drive for, the commitment we all have for the sport, regardless of format we’re going to be a threat and have a shot to win championships.”

▪ Tony Stewart: He had a forgettable 2014. He did not win a race for the first time in his Cup career, and he had to deal with a tragic situation in which he hit and killed a driver during a dirt track race in August.

Said Stewart: “We’re talking about 2015 now. You’re talking about something that we talked about in 2014 that we already covered. [Getting behind the wheel again] is not an issue, it’s not something I’m thinking about. It’s just kind of in the past. I’m ready to go.”

▪ Kevin Harvick: The only thing missing from his racing résumé was a championship, and he earned it last season. Now, he’ll try to become a repeat champion.

▪ Danica Patrick: She’s entering her third full-time Cup season, and has yet to post a top-five finish. She has four top-10 runs in 82 races so far, so this will be another pivotal year in her career.

This story was originally published February 13, 2015 at 11:36 AM with the headline "All eyes on Jeff Gordon as NASCAR season gets underway."