Yahoo Autos A New Documentary Goes Behind Jeff Gordon's 1997 Daytona Win
After Jeff Gordon narrowly missed out on winning the 1996 Winston Cup championship, his crew chief, Ray Evernham, was worried the team would be too stressed heading into the 1997 Daytona 500. To brighten everyone's spirits, Evernham decided to film the whole thing for a lighthearted home movie. As a result, we now have an incredible look back at this race.
Refuse to Lose, a documentary put together around the footage shot in 1997 and new interviews with Gordon and Evernham, just premiered last night on Fox Sports 1. Comprising of mostly unreleased footage, it offers a fascinating glimpse into what goes into winning NASCAR's most important race.
While Gordon was the star of the race at the time, Evernham emerges as the star of the film. His unconventional brilliance is on full display here.
"Ray had a lot of unique methods that didn't always make sense at the time," Gordon told Autoweek. "[This film] was certainly a different way to inspire us. I learned later that he wanted this to be a symbol of how confident he was that we were going to win that race -- that we would get it done."
The documentary also features a lot of great footage of Dale Earnhardt off track. It spends time exploring the frenemy relationship between young-gun Gordon and the Intimidator.
Refuse to Lose will air again on Sunday at 5:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. on Fox Sports 1.
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