Gordons celebrates his victory in the national championship
It’s been a difficult year and one of the worst for most people in the world. The deadly virus, school closures, company closures and social restrictions have affected many people. But beneath all this, there is a family in Paso Robles who is getting the best out of a difficult situation and is probably experiencing one of the best years of her life.
The Gordon family is a family of tugboats. This year their dreams came true when Doug Gordon officially won the first NHRA Top Alcohol Funny Car National Championship in the Lucas Oil series last weekend.
Drag racing is in the veins of every member of the Gordon family. It has been passed down from generation to generation and will continue to be passed down because Doug’s daughters, Templeton Maddie and Mackey Gordon High School, have already caught the virus and spend the weekend enthusiastically greasing their elbows and working on their father’s car when they are not racing.
My father started driving and driving; the car is his, I’m driving it now, Doug told me. He owned it and drove it for years, and I was like the kids who worked on that car when I was young. Then, from the mid-80s to the early 90s, when I was 18, the economy was in some kind of recession and we weren’t sure if we could continue the race, so they decided to give me a chance to run before we gave up. That was in 1993, when I got my driver’s license, and here we are in 2020.
The race has always been a family outing, disguised as a race for a strong family. Doug Mike’s father is a member of the racing team, and his daughters have also been with him this year because of the Kowid 19 pandemic.
Maddie and Masi have been racing for five years and are also engaged in sports and schoolwork. Each of them has their own car and has dominated 7th place in recent years. Division of the NHRA Junior Dragster League. They have four championships between two girls, and hopefully it can go up to six.
Masi, the youngest freshman at Templeton High School, won her age group in 2015, 2017 and 2019 and hopes to return in 2021 when the odd years seem to shine for her. Maddy, a junior, won in 2016 and came close to winning in 2018 and 2019, but only lost a few points due to car problems.
This year began like any other for the Gordon family, but things started to change when the pandemic broke out in March. As all school districts in the district have clearly indicated that the school year 2020-2021 will be opened through distance learning, the family has recognised the possibility.
Over the years, Maddie and Masi have each participated in a handful of their father’s races, depending on their travels and schedules. This year Maddi and Maci went to every race with no obligation other than a webcam on their laptop, recording every gram of information they had at their disposal.
Last year, after every turn, we took out the spark plugs, removed the valve caps, disposed of the vomit in the back of the tank, you know, just little things, Masi said. We still had a lot of fun, but this year we learned more than half of what we learned last year. She and I [Maddie] do so much in the car that we never thought we’d get the chance. It was really cool.
This year, two new mechanics appeared on the Gordon racing team who suddenly started to win. In recent years Doug has been at the top of the sport for the second, third and final season in a row, but he has found nothing that will bring him and the team to the top.
This year, when we go to the finals, we really managed to finish them and win several times, Doug said. It’s partly because we’ve done better, partly because we’re luckier, and maybe girls are my lucky charm. Since the girls are with me, the victorious light is seen much more often. To be honest, we have been to almost every last race since their arrival and we have probably won more than half of them.
It has been an incredibly busy season for National Champion Doug and his new blonde mechanic who likes to spend time with his family and learn do-it-yourself tricks.
At the beginning of the year I was very angry because I was about to get a permit, so I had permission and COVID did not allow me to get a permit. I was very upset and I thought it was the worst year of my life and I was determined it was going to suck, Maddy said. Well, I describe this year as the life of my dreams. I couldn’t have wished for anything else. We travel all the time with Daddy and Daddy, Grandma and Rick.
Doug and Team Gordon were so dominant this year in the shortened COVID season that he didn’t even have to wait until last weekend to realize his dream.
We used to drive funny cars powered by alcohol, my dad drove, and then I drove, we did it for 30 years and we never thought it could really happen, Gordon said on stage after winning the trophy. This year I just said that the family is with me and that we have a great team.
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