{"id":7215,"date":"2019-08-14T10:52:29","date_gmt":"2019-08-14T14:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonmotorsport.com\/?p=7215"},"modified":"2019-08-14T10:52:29","modified_gmt":"2019-08-14T14:52:29","slug":"axalta-gravel-gordon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2019\/08\/14\/axalta-gravel-gordon\/","title":{"rendered":"How David Gravel and Jeff Gordon put Axalta on to Sprint Cars"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Gravel crossed the finish line first on Saturday night at Knoxville Raceway during sprint car racing\u2019s biggest night of the year, winning the big $150,000 check.<\/p>\n

The lights shined down onto victory lane and the hand-painted Axalta No. 41 car as Gravel climbed a top to wave the double-checkered flags.<\/p>\n

The Axalta Racing crew was front and center, thanks to the driving of Gravel, some convincing from Jeff Gordon, among other hard-working people that put the 41 back in victory lane at Knoxville.<\/p>\n

How David Gravel and Jeff Gordon put Axalta on to Sprint Cars<\/strong><\/h2>\n

They made quite an impact on Knoxville and, apparently, on Axalta too.<\/p>\n

Adam Stern of Sports Business Journal reported on Tuesday afternoon that after the pleasant experience, Axalta is exploring a larger investment into sprint car racing.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/A_S12\/status\/1161365873422196736<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThey like great partners,\u201d Gordon said about his long-time sponsor. \u201cRacing works really well for them. It\u2019s been proven in other forms of motorsports that they\u2019ve gotten involved with like NASCAR, obviously.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s part of the reason he made the push to get the company on the car for last week\u2019s Knoxville Nationals.<\/p>\n

It started at the Chili Bowl \u2013 the Super Bowl of Midget racing held two weeks after Christmas in Tulsa, Oklahoma every year.<\/p>\n

Gordon ended up talking to Gravel for a majority of one night, spending hours with the World of Outlaws driver.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was with Rico [Abreu] and Jeff came over,\u201d Gravel said. \u201cWe talked and pretty much talked for three hours face to face.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a good time and it just stemmed from there,\u201d Gravel said.<\/p>\n

Gordon had heard of Gravel but had never met him until that day.<\/p>\n

The two hit it off from the start, beginning the process of what would become a Knoxville Nationals winning sponsorship deal.<\/p>\n

Gordon had Gravel\u2019s back.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he believed in me,\u201d Gravel said. \u201cI don\u2019t think it really mattered how we ran. I think he saw something in me and it wouldn\u2019t matter what kind of car we were running. If we were struggling, he would probably want to help us out to try and make us better. You just never know. Racing is a tough sport. It tests you. I\u2019m happy to be with JJR and Axalta.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, Gravel and the No. 41 car are right on the edge of competing for a World of Outlaws championship.<\/p>\n

Him and his team are just 118 points out of first place, something that amounts to 59 positions on the actual race track, coming out of the biggest win and potential momentum swing of Gravel\u2019s career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t be more proud of the way this partnership has come together because they\u2019re the kind of partner Axalta likes to do business with, Gordon said. \u201cThe car looks amazing and it\u2019s been a very exciting, fun night for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gravel will continue his fight for the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series championship<\/a> with Brad Sweet and Donny Schatz through the back-end of the season schedule.<\/p>\n

Gravel says there might be some more collaboration of him and Gordon’s in the future, too.<\/p>\n

“He said he had a couple of goals he would like for me, but he said [he’s] not making any promises, Gravel said.<\/p>\n

“He came through with one of them. Hopefully there\u2019s more in the future.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Gravel crossed the finish line first on Saturday night at Knoxville Raceway during sprint car racing\u2019s biggest night of the year, winning the big $150,000 check. The lights shined down onto victory lane and the hand-painted Axalta No. 41 car as Gravel climbed a top to wave the double-checkered flags. The Axalta Racing crew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":315,"featured_media":7216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,7],"tags":[1184,602,1182,108,486,1114],"class_list":["post-7215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dirt","category-more-racing","tag-axalta","tag-david-gravel","tag-jason-johnson-racing","tag-jeff-gordon","tag-world-of-outlaws","tag-world-of-outlaws-sprint-cars"],"modified_by":"Connor Ferguson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/315"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}