NASCAR Cup Series

Put 'em up: Jeff Gordon's top five fights through the years

Published Jan. 25, 2015 10:22 a.m. ET

foxsports

Jeff Gordon has been known throughout most of his storied career in NASCAR as one of the calmest, classiest guys in the Sprint Cup garage.

But he also races with lots of passion, and sometimes that carries over into confrontations with one of his on-track adversaries and, by extension, the teams who fiercely back both the driver of the No. 24 Chevrolet and those Gordon has gone after.

So without further ado, we give you the top five altercations (some stopped just short of being true "fights") of Gordon's career -- beginning with No. 1, which also happens to be the most recent.

It came last Nov. 2 at Texas Motor Speedway when Gordon took issue with Brad Keselowski making contact with him as the raced for the lead late in the AAA Texas 500. As soon as the race ended, Gordon made a bee-line for Keselowski's No. 2 car and pretty soon all heck broke loose on pit road as both the drivers and their entire teams, plus even some guys from teams who weren't involved in the incident, commenced scrapping.

It wasn't the first time Gordon has been involved in such an incident.

Pretty much the same thing happened post-race in the Sprint Cup garage following a race in Phoenix in November, 2012. But then it was driver Clint Bowyer going after Gordon after Gordon dumped him with two laps remaining -- in apparent retaliation for an earlier incident between the two.

Bowyer charged hard for a piece of Gordon after the race before crew members from both teams ended up involved in a widespread scuffle.

There also was the shoving incident between Gordon and Jeff Burton after Burton wrecked Gordon at Texas in November, 2010. Burton infamously claimed the sun got in his eyes before he ran into Gordon during a caution period.

Burton said over his in-car radio as soon as the incident occurred that Gordon "cut up in front of me."

Gordon's radio response, according to an ESPN report at the time?

"It's killed," he said. "That sucker killed it. What the hell? He's the one being a dumbass."

After their shoving match and being separated by officials both drivers were forced to ride in the same ambulance to the infield care center.

"I didn't want to ride in the ambulance with him, I tell you that," Gordon said. "I wanted to confront him. It wasn't fun."

Gordon also tangled with Matt Kenseth in Bristol in March, 2006.

And who can forget the harsh exchange of words between Gordon and Tony Stewart following an incident at Watkins Glen early in Stewart's NASCAR career after coming over from open-wheel racing?

No punches were thrown, but their verbal exchange was caught on camera and certainly was entertaining -- illustrating again that Gordon is passionate about what he does and unwilling to take any perceived transgressions against him lightly. Although the video is grainy, the audio on this clip is well worth a listen.