NASCAR Phoenix 2014: Jeff Gordon compares video prank to winning Daytona 500

Jeff Gordon is quite proud of the elaborate prank he pulled on a journalist, calling it “the most incredible thing that I’ve ever done.”

What the four-time NASCAR champion is referring to is a video in which Gordon plays an ex-convict cab driver who takes Travis Okulski, a reporter from Jalopnik.com, for a wild ride in an effort to evade pursuing police. The video is part of a Pepsi ad campaign and follows the highly-successful “Test Drive,” which garnered 40 million-plus views on YouTube.

But unlike “Test Drive,” in which a stunt driver was used, as well as an actor playing the role of an unsuspecting car salesman, this latest edition is 100 percent authentic, according to Gordon.

“When you look at all the comments from the first video ... it was everybody really challenging us to go and do this because of their comments of saying, ‘Hey, Jeff wasn’t driving the car or this or that wasn’t real,’” Gordon said Friday at Phoenix International Raceway. “We wanted to go out there and show everybody how authentic and how real this can be.”

The planning and executing of the video, which was filmed in a North Carolina industrial park, took eight months and involved numerous approvals and permits as well as a rouse to lure Okulski to the Charlotte area.

One of the most difficult things was getting Pepsi’s attorneys to sign off on the idea of Gordon driving wildly and restraining Okulski against his will. (At one point in the video, Okulski pleads with Gordon to stop and makes frequent attempts to open the doors and windows, which are locked.)

During filming, Gordon and producers had a safe word -- “Nebraska” -- in case they felt at risk or something had gone wrong, which Gordon nearly used as a scared Okulski attempted to kick out the partition between himself and Gordon.

“When I first took off and I hit about 80 miles per hour and he started kicking that glass, I came this close [to saying the safe word],” Gordon said. “You don’t know what that situation is going to be like until you have that person in the back of the car that is really scared.

“I just knew that it’s all going to be over very quick, and luckily when I opened that door and saw that smile on his face, it made it all worth it.”

Gordon compared the accomplishment of completing the stunt felt similar to “winning the Daytona 500.” The video released Thursday had nearly five million views as of Friday afternoon.

Unlike the original “Test Drive,” Gordon did all the driving in this version. He called the experience an “adrenaline rush” and relished the opportunity to be involved in a project that was a challenge and presented great risk.

“It was a lot of fun, but it was nerve wracking because we had one take to do that and pull it off,” Gordon said. “There was a lot involved, but the results are really, really good.

“Safety was the first thing on the list of concerns. ... How we pulled this off is near impossible.”