Clean-cut and polished in front of a camera, Jeff Gordon helped transform NASCAR racing from a regional spectacle into a mainstream sport. Gordon became the youngest driver to triumph at the Daytona 500 in 1997 and tied a modern record with 13 victories in one season in 1998, finishing both years as the series champion. He notched a fourth championship in 2001, culminating an amazing stretch that produced 56 victories in seven years.

Gordon’s iconic DuPont Rainbow livery is the winningest paint scheme in NASCAR history, with 52 wins at 17 different tracks, three championship titles, and over 10,000 laps led. One of the most important milestones in Gordon’s remarkable Rainbow-liveried days was achieved with this car at Talladega’s DieHard 500 race on 16 April 2000. Although Gordon would rack up another 43 victories over the remainder of his NASCAR career (good for 3rd-best of all time), his ascent to greatness reached one of its most important statistical plateaus with this 50th win at the Talladega Superspeedway astride chassis 2444, offered here.

Starting from a lowly 36th on the grid among the 48-member race field, Gordon and chassis 2444 battled their way up the field, earning a place among the frontrunners by lap 80. On lap 103, he vaulted this car into the race lead for the first time; over the next 60 laps, Gordon would trade this lead in a pitched battle with no fewer than four combatants. Finally, on the race’s sixth-to-last go around the Superspeedway, Gordon urged chassis 2444 into the lead and masterfully defended his position from assault over the race’s closing moments to take the checkered flag. Gordon’s sweet victory represented his 50th NASCAR victory, his first victory of the 2000 NASCAR season with crew chief Robbie Loomis, the break of his longest winless streak since 1993, and also a new NASCAR record for lowest starting position for a race-winner.

Following continued Superspeedway use during the 2000 and 2001 NASCAR Winston Cup seasons, Hendrick Motorsports later converted the car for continued used in the 2004 season of the ARCA racing series.

In February 2005, it was sold as a rolling chassis by Hendrick to former NASCAR driver Gene Felton, who subsequently restored it to its as-raced superspeedway configuration and iconic DuPont Rainbow/Jeff Gordon #24 livery. Between 1992 and 2015, Felton was proprietor of a high-end restoration shop which specialized in historic IMSA and ex-Winston Cup NASCAR racecars.

Following its restoration, chassis 2444 was sold to another significant Canadian collector before its addition the Dare to Dream Collection during September 2013. This race-winning, record-breaking Jeff Gordon DuPont Rainbow Monte Carlo is a tremendously significant artifact from one of the most important moments in the career of NASCAR’s “Golden Boy.”