Jordan Taylor has been around racing all his life. He’s driven on plenty of famous tracks and rubbed shoulders with plenty of famous drivers, but he was still surprised to see just how fanatical the sport’s followers can be.
It was not long before the 2017 running of the 24 Hours of Daytona, and he was in Brownsburg, Ind., having lunch at a small restaurant with Jeff Gordon. They were going to be teammates in the race, and they were on their way to get the four-time NASCAR champ some time in a simulator. “He was getting approached by fans left and right at just a normal restaurant, not even in a race town,” says Taylor. “I couldn’t believe how famous he was.”
For the record, Gordon remembers it as being “just another day,” which makes one wonder how Taylor would have reacted had the lunch been in, say, Charlotte. But nonetheless, a little light went off over Taylor’s head. He went on eBay and bought a vintage DuPont rainbow Gordon jacket. (“It’s authentic,” Taylor says. “It still smells like cigarettes.”) He got a pair of jeans and cut them into shorts. Some oversized shades, a crooked cap and a pair of Dr. Scholl’s shoes (“super comfortable”) completed the outfit. Then, when he got to Daytona, he approached Gordon in the paddock and tried to pass himself off as a rabid fan. “Unfortunately he caught on like five seconds into the prank,” says Taylor. “But people loved the outfit, the jorts and the name [I’d come up with]: Rodney Sandstorm. So it kind of took on a life of its own after that.”
