Jeff Gordon was about 10 years old and living in Pittsboro, Ind., when he had his a racing epiphany.

“The coolest thing about racing midgets in Indiana was that it paid money to race,” Gordon said. “I was just blown away that you could get $30 if you won the feature. We’d run two classes … and if I won them both I could get $60 and a trophy.”

After he collected another trophy — and $518,053 — on Sunday for winning the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Gordon couldn’t precisely remember the first time he won a race in Indiana.

It would have been in a quarter-midget and sometime in 1981, Gordon said, perhaps at a track in Kokomo or at a place called Big Z. “I have no idea where Big Z is,” he said.

Gordon had moved to this Midwest racing Mecca because the rules here allowed him to race bigger cars at a younger age than he’d been able to race in his native California. He quickly moved up to midgets and sprint cars and by the time he was attending high school, he was dreaming about competing against sprint-car legend Steve Kinser someday.

Gordon was driving on dirt tracks that dot the countryside in Indiana and other states in this region. Drivers who raced on pavement almost were like another species, but Gordon crossed over. He started running in U.S. Auto Club-sanctioned events, getting on ESPN and getting around other drivers dreaming about racing on the ultimate paved track, the “big track” in Indianapolis.

Back when he was 10 or so, Gordon visited the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the first time. He came the day after the Indianapolis 500, went to the museum in the infield and took the bus tour around the track.

The first time he came to the Brickyard during 500 week, he had bought a T-shirt that listed all of the winners of that race on the back.

“I was just a kid standing on the fence and I yelled at Rick Mears,” Gordon said. “He had somebody grab the shirt and he signed it.”

Gordon was reliving all of that Sunday after he’d led 124 of 161 laps to win for the fifth time this season and to win the Brickyard 400 for the fourth time in the event’s 11-year history, joining Mears, A.J. Foyt and Al Unser Sr. as the only drivers to win a major race at Indy four times in their careers.

He’d parked on the yard of bricks and climbed out of his car to celebrate with his team in front of the grandstands.

Over the radio, NASCAR officials were ordering the team to get the car to Victory Lane so sponsorship protocols could be followed. Nobody was listening, and since NASCAR has decided to make that a crusade, there could have been ramifications for Gordon and his team. But NASCAR revealed Wednesday it wouldn’t penalize Gordon.

“The whole time I just enjoyed the moment,” Gordon said. “I didn’t care.

“I went out there because that’s where I wanted to celebrate with my team.”

Despite his four Brickyard wins, Gordon shunned any comparisons between himself and Mears, Foyt and Unser.

But comparison are inevitable, and now a countdown has begun toward another that will only intensify as Gordon keeps winning.

Sunday’s victory was the 69th of his career, leaving him seventh on NASCAR’s all-time list. The driver ahead of him on that list has 76 wins. And his name is Dale Earnhardt.