Jeff Gordon's car was almost the #46

It has been revealed by Jeff Gordon's first Cup crew chief Ray Evernham on Twitter that Jeff's number at Hendrick was originally supposed to be #46, instead of #24 as it ended up being. The number 46 was used by Hendrick on a Chevrolet sponsored by real car dealership City Chevrolet in a couple of races during which scenes were filmed for the 1990 movie Days of Thunder starring Tom Cruise. The green and yellow #46 is still a well-known car in motorsports popular culture today.


But Days of Thunder created a licensing problem for Gordon and Evernham, who had wanted to use 46 as the number on the DuPont Chevrolet in the Winston Cup Series beginning in 1993. When they were made aware of the problems, they looked through a series of available numbers and decided to go with #24, which had achieved very little success in NASCAR's top series up to that point. Gordon drove the #24 to his and the number's first Cup win in the 1994 Coca-Cola 600, and now he has given the #24 a total of 92 wins, one of the most in the sport's history. Now we know that it was almost the #46 instead of the #24 that became one of the most famous NASCAR numbers ever. But that didn't happen thanks to Days of Thunder, although you could now say that the #24 evolved out of that movie-famous (but not competition-famous) #46 car.