Don’t expect to see Jeff Gordon on ‘Dancing with the Stars’

When he steps away from full-time NASCAR competition at the end of the year, Jeff Gordon isn’t certain what he’s going to do.

The four-time Cup Series champion has talked about still dabbling in NASCAR -- be it a one-off at Indianapolis or Martinsville, two of Gordon’s favorite tracks. He’s even entertained running the Truck Series race at Eldora, the dirt track owned by Tony Stewart that has become a popular event.

Outside of NASCAR, Gordon has spoken of a desire to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and other marquee sports cars races. But at this point there are no plans, just speculation with Gordon’s attention solely on qualifying for the Chase for the Sprint Cup and winning another championship.

“I have not even attempted to go down that path yet,” Gordon said Friday at Auto Club Speedway. “I want to leave this season competitive and up front and winning races and in the Chase with a chance at the championship. We have a little work to do here first before I can start thinking about anything else.

“When I think about that, my first step would be to go talk to Chevrolet and talk to them about their motorsports program outside of NASCAR. I haven’t done that yet, but at some point I probably will. Just to explore. I’m not even sure how much interest I have in that. I have too many other things right now going on.”

One thing Gordon is adamant he won’t do is participate on Dancing with the Stars, the popular reality television show. Although Michael Waltrip competed to great acclaim last year, and Gordon has exhibited a prowess for break dancing, a chronically bad back prohibits him from competing.

“I’m open to doing fun things -- that is not fun to me,” Gordon said. “Honestly, I would do it for my wife because I know how much she would enjoy it and it would give us the opportunity to maybe take some ballroom dancing classes or something. But my back is the problem. I just feel like I would struggle too much with injury to my back.

“I’m not afraid to take risks, but I wouldn’t do it if I felt like I couldn’t do it halfway decent job at it.”

Despite still being competitive at age 43, Gordon’s back is one of the reasons he decided to step away from NASCAR full-time. Last season his back flared up and caused him so much pain, he wasn’t able to practice for the May race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. And a few years ago when Gordon did demonstrate his break dancing skills to a group of fans in Las Vegas, he felt the effects afterward.

“One, is I’m not limber enough, and then every time I do it I end up hobbling around for about two weeks,” Gordon said. “It is all I can do to just sit down for four hours every weekend (in a race car).”