"He was like, ‘I'm the guy that's gonna go up against Dale Earnhardt’" - When Jeff Gordon reflected on his rivalry with Rusty Wallace

In 2018, Jeff Gordon, who is now retired from the sport, touched upon his NASCAR rivalry with Rusty Wallace, a former Cup Series driver. Gordon shared that he had a brief yet fiery rivalry with Wallace in Japan during the Thunder Special Suzuka races in the late 1990s.

In 1996 and 97, NASCAR held two non-championship and exhibition races on Suzuka Circuit in Suzuka City, Japan. During these two years, Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, and Rusty Wallace fought their way out for supremacy.

Earnhardt was the dominant name in the NASCAR community then, with his able competitor being Wallace. Amid this, Gordon became a name to reckon with and the primary contender against Earnhardt. This was not something Wallace took very lightly.

Gordon shared an anecdote of those days and opened up about how he was competitive against Wallace and Earnhardt. He told Dirty Mo Media,

"What stands out to be a couple of things about Japan, this has been mentioned and Rusty kind of had a little bit of a rivalry, and that you might not know a whole lot about that but the way it kind of worked out was in 95', when I broke out and had that championship year, me and your dad went battling."

Gordon added:

"Rusty kind of looked at it as 'this is, this is my place right. I'm the guy that's gonna go up against Dale Earnhardt and I'm the one that you know hopefully will come out on top, and my career's getting a pole, and then all of a sudden who's this little punk kid, that came along."(0:18-0:55)

Notably, Rusty Wallace won the 1996 NASCAR Special Thunder Suzuka amid stiff competition from Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon. Wallace was one of the most renowned Cup drivers of his time.

The 53-year-old has a championship under his belt, the 1989 Winston Cup Series, 55 Cup Series victories, 36 pole positions, and 349 top 10s in 706 races in over 25 years. He retired from the sport in 2005 after the Ford 400 at Homestead.

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Competition against Dale Earnhardt raised the bar for Jeff Gordon

Jeff Gordon beats Dale Earnhardt to the finish line in the Daytona 500 on Feb. 14, 1999. - Source: Imagn

During his recent interview with American journalist Bob Pockrass, Jeff Gordon recalled how going up against Dale Earnhardt and Richard Childress Racing in the early 1990s helped him gain a massive boost during his career. Here's what the HMS Vice Chairman said:

"To be able to go toe to toe with him (Dale Sr) and Richard Childress Racing and actually pull that championship (1995) off, from that point on, it just felt like, All right, we have a car and a team that can do this every year."

During his racing career, Gordon claimed four Cup Series wins, and three of them have come during Earnhardt's peak. Gordon claimed the 1995, 1997, and 1998 Cup Series championships amid stiff competition from the late Cup Series driver.