Jeff Gordon reveals the one question he regretted not asking Dale Earnhardt

Earnhardt often ribbed Gordon during the 1995 season. That included Earnhardt saying that Gordon, who was 24 at the conclusion of the 1995 campaign, would have to drink milk instead of champagne at NASCAR's year-end banquet because he was so young. 

"It was getting under my skin," Gordon said. "I would do an interview and they go, 'We were just talking to Dale, and Dale said Rainbow Warrior, Wonder Boy, and all these nicknames he had for me. He can't win the championship, what are they going to do, serve milk at the championship? 

"I didn't want to get involved in that. And I kinda wish I had a little bit more, because I do think he was doing it because he knew it was working. Not just to get under my skin, but it was working for the media, it was working for NASCAR and the growth and the fans. I think that's what I'd love to know is, how much of that was manufactured?"

The rivalry between the two was more of a culture war between the two drivers' fan bases and their personalities: Earnhardt was the common man's driver, raised in NASCAR country in North Carolina. Gordon emulated Tom Cruise's character of Cole Trickle in the 1990 film "Days of Thunder": A newcomer who originally had his sights set on open-wheel racing but proves to be adept at driving stock cars. 

But there was hardly ever true malice behind the words they spoke to each other. Both drivers went down as all-time greats when their careers ended, and even though their careers were on different trajectories at the height of their perceived rivalry, the Earnhardt vs Gordon storyline stuck and persists to this day.

Gordon, who won four championships from 1995-2001, beat Earnhardt for the 1995 title by only 34 points. Earnhardt, who won seven titles from 1980-94, never won another championship again, also finishing runner-up to Bobby Labonte in 2000 before dying in a last-lap crash in the 2001 Daytona 500.