LONG POND — Every NASCAR fan has a story about how he “fell in love” with his favorite race car driver.
Maybe it was meeting that driver in person or attending a race in which he won. Perhaps it’s the color of his race car, his sponsor or what team he drives for.
For Greg Dowling, he became a Jeff Gordon fan for another reason.
“I really don’t know why I started liking Jeff Gordon,” Dowling said. “I think it’s because all of my friends didn’t like him.”
Dowling was one of a bevy of Gordon fans that trekked to Pocono Raceway for Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Windows 10 400 to see their favorite driver one more time before he retires at the end of the season.
The 49-year-old from Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, won an eBay auction through the Jeff Gordon Children’s Foundation to attend.
Dowling and his father, Chris, 79, made the 6.5-hour drive to Monroe County, their first trip to the Tricky Triangle.
“I knew it was his last year, and I knew how special Pocono was,” Dowling said as he snapped photos of Gordon climbing into his No. 24 Chevrolet on pit road prior to the race.
“Through the NASCAR foundation, I won an auction on eBay. I bid $3,024.24, and I won by 24 cents. I got to attend the drivers’ meeting, got a tour of the 24 hauler and then got to go to Victory Lane for driver introductions.”
Dowling isn’t just your ordinary NASCAR fan. He was named “Canada’s Most Devoted NASCAR fan” in a 2011 photo contest conducted by the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series. He won a trip for four to any NASCAR race, and he took his family to the 2012 Daytona 500.
Dowling, who creates graphics for snowmobiles, submitted a photo of himself in a room full of Jeff Gordon memorabilia that he has in his home. He brought a blown-up copy of that photo with him Sunday to Pocono that he had Gordon autograph.
“My wife always tells me, and she’s right, that I have more photos up in our house of Jeff Gordon than I do from our wedding,” Dowling said.
Like Dowling, Tracey Feryo and her husband Mike started watching NASCAR races in the mid-1990s, when Gordon was just starting his illustrious career.
The Schuylkill Haven couple consistently attended NASCAR races in Charlotte, and has a bar full of Gordon memorabilia in their home.
“He was very young when I started (watching), and I thought he was really good looking,” Tracey Feryo said. “He was the new up-and-coming superstar to the sport.”
Feryo attended Sunday’s race with her son, 19-year-old Michael, a sophomore-to-be at Kutztown University. They sat in Section 246, right where Kasey Kahne crashed into pit road a few laps into Sunday’s race.
“Mike wanted to see Jeff Gordon race again before he retired,” Tracey Feryo said, adding it was the first NASCAR race they went to in eight years. “(Pocono) was the closest race before he went back to school.”
Jake Hepler was hoping before the race that he would be Gordon’s “good luck charm” for a second time.
The 13-year-old Frackville teen, clad in a white Gordon race T-shirt, attended his first NASCAR race at Pocono on Aug. 5, 2012. Gordon won that day, the fourth time he reached Victory Lane at Pocono.
Sunday, Gordon rallied late to finish third after several of the lead-lap cars ran out of fuel during the final laps.
“My first race was the last time Jeff Gordon won,” Hepler said while standing in the garage area near Gordon’s stall with his father, Chaz Hepler. “He’s the first driver I got to meet and get my picture with. He was really nice.
“My dad said I was his good luck charm.”
Renee Wright was hoping her message left on Gordon’s pit wall provided the driver with some good luck as well.
The garage area and pit road areas are open to fans during the morning hours, and Wright made sure her first trip to Pocono Raceway included visiting Gordon’s pit stall.
The 24-year-old from Nutley, New Jersey, became a Gordon fan through her boyfriend, D.J. Ditter, and wanted to make sure she saw a NASCAR race in person before Gordon retired.
“My boyfriend has always been a big fan, and kept telling me how he was a good driver,” Wright said. “So I started watching him to see how he does, and he’s won a lot of races.
“This is my first NASCAR race and my first trip here.”
Ditter’s mom, Maryellen, was with Wright on pit road as she signed the pit wall. Maryellen Ditter flew in from Tulsa, Oklahoma, just for the race.
“We lived in Florida for a while, pretty close to Daytona,” she explained. “We went over to the Bud Shootout races a lot. My son couldn’t keep his eyes off the Rainbow Warrors, and he’s been a big fan ever since.”