Of course, everyone remembers the iconic Jeff Gordon DuPont paint scheme, the rainbow paint scheme, and the rest. But there is one more iconic look from the early stages of the Hendrick driver’s career. Can you guess?

Well, it is the mustache. The little mustache Gordon rocked during the very start of his career.

This was something that Richard Petty recently confronted the #24 driver about. The King opened up on his hilarious take on Gordon’s look as well as questioned him, “Why did you do that?”

“The only thing I remember about Jeff, seeing some kid walking around over there in a uniform, had a little mustache,” Petty recalled. “21 years old, and he was trying to look like he was 30, and he really looked like he was about 16.”

In his defense, Gordon described how it goes “way back.” 

I wasn’t even old enough to get in the garage area in the sprint car races. So I could grow a mustache pretty early on, obviously not a very good one,” he said. “So I thought I could look old enough where I belonged in the garage area of those races. And I kept it.” 

WATCH THIS STORY: Sports Media World Reacts To The Bubba Wallace News

Gordon asked Petty, “You should have come over to me to say, ‘You know, I don’t know what kind of career you’re going to have, but I can help you with your look if you want.'”

Jeff Gordon was hugely influenced by Richard Petty’s farewell at Atlanta

The Atlanta Cup race that weekend was supposed to be Richard Petty’s farewell from NASCAR. And a young Jeff Gordon was there to witness it, absorb the greatness, for he himself would go on to become a legend in his own right in the future.

“There were thousands of people around him. I remember that, I remember standing atop the truck, watching Richard walking through the garage area,” Gordon said. “I’d never seen that many people in the garage area.”

“The graciousness, (he was) walking, signing, taking pictures with every single one of them. That had a big influence on me,” he added.

Gordon emphasized that to him, he was looking at a legend, the greatest that there’s ever been, something that compelled him to think he wants something like that for himself, make his own mark and follow in his footsteps.