It won't be the same without Jeff Gordon

I used to hate Jeff Gordon. I admit it. 

It wasn't just that he won all the time, although it was. I know there's a belief that dominant champions are good for a sport because everyone wants to see if they'll get knocked off, but I've never bought it. Unless it's who you're rooting for, why watch when you know who's going to win?

But not only did he win all the time, he was just so ... perfect about it. He had the good looks (after he got a decent haircut and shaved his cheesy mustache), the beauty queen wife, the crew chief who seemingly always made the right call (and with just a whiff of wondering if chicanery was involved, for instance the red car in the top picture), the owner who had all the money and always spoke like he was reading from a PR handbook.

It's like someone he was pressed in a factory somewhere and programmed.

And God, was it annoying.

Yet reading the news today that Gordon won't be racing full-time after this season didn't leave me with the sense of glee that it once would have.

Because you see, somewhere along the line, I stopped hating Jeff Gordon. Yes, part of it was because he stopped winning all the time, but he also stopped being so perfect. He had ups and downs in his personal life (a divorce, remarriage and children), grew a beard once in a while, laughed at himself and even got into a couple fights.

He was, dare I say, human.

And when he became human, he became a lot harder to hate.

So while I don't exactly root for Jeff Gordon, I don't spit and sputter at the thought of him winning (that would be the younger Busch brother), and I can say with respect that if he's not in the lineup of the 2016 Daytona 500, it won't be the same.

Me and my cars

Honest, they were in a display case.

My wife and I are going to be moving, which means we're working on boxing stuff up. Today, that included my collection of die-cast cars. 

With the exception of a couple Randy LaJoie cars and a Robby Gordon, all my cars of Dale Earnhardt, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kevin Harvick. I mostly get them as Christmas and birthday gifts, unless I see a good deal somewhere, like when I was able to grab a couple Harvick cars (including an autographed one) on clearance at the Childress museum last year. I actually have a couple that aren't shown here, but since I just got them for Christmas and knew I would be packing them up, anyway, I didn't bother taking them out.

Fortunately for both my parents' and my bank accounts, I'm not a completist; I basically get the stuff I like. I still don't have any Harvick No. 4 cars, something I obviously have to rectify, and in addition to whatever current cars I add to the collection, I'd like to grab the Earnhardt Wheaties car, the Earnhardt Jr. and Harvick ACDelco cars and maybe a Ron Hornaday NAPA truck if I can find them somewhere.

As I looked over the collection spread out on our TV room floor, for all the color (and yes, I have four cars with Wrangler-themed paint schemes), the one that jumped out at me was mostly white.

Mine

The original

This may sound crazy, but I don't think Kevin Harvick has ever gotten enough credit for what he did.

The most-popular driver in the sport had just died during the Daytona 500, the entire sport and its fans were in mourning and Richard Childress, instead of finding a veteran to finish out the season and buy time until he could decide on a permanent driver, turned to Harvick, his 25-year-old, second-year Busch Series driver.

Not only did he have to start racing a white No. 29 car that just the last week had been the iconic black No. 3, he was keeping his full-time Busch Series ride.

So all he did was win his third Cup start in a you-remember-where-you-were-when-it-happened moment, finish in the top 10 in Cup points and take the Busch Series title ... with reminders of what was lost and whose car he was driving present every week. (How Dale Jr., who, after all, lost his father, managed is beyond my feeble comprehension.)

Harvick couldn't replace Dale Earnhardt -- an impossibility if there ever was one -- but he and Dale Jr. (remember the trip back to Daytona that season?) at least gave his fans something to celebrate.